Gathering some thoughts on Divine Divinity

[udm]

DD's been on a bargain sale for a long time now. I'm thinking of picking it up, as I'm in the mood for some good RPGs, and I've heard quite a lot of nice things about it

I gave the demo a shot, but I'm kinda divided about it, so I'd like to gather some feedback from the Codex. I had some technical problems with the game. The map in my Diary is fubared - the colours are all screwy and keep fuzzing about. I guess this has something to do with the demo being unoptimized. Also, I'm stuck to playing in 640x480, which wouldn't be a problem if not for the fact that my interface doesn't take up 1/4 of the screen, and my character isn't 6cm in size

On the side of technical issues:

- can I play in 1024x768?
- anyone here experienced gamebreaking bugs?

Now on to gameplay. My biggest gripe with the demo so far is that characters move too fast. I have to pause the game every now and then just to keep up with the characters to interact with them. It's very annoying to rely on pause so often

- How is the gameplay like in the full version? What game is the closest comparison that I can draw to DD?
- I really like the voice acting, and the solid looks to be pretty cliche but well-presented so far. How does this keep up with the rest of the game? Does it degenerate into more hack n slash eventually, or...?
- I noticed there aren't any non-combat skills, like stealing. Or maybe I wasn't observant enough in my 10 min playtime. Are there?

I'm liking what the game's presenting though. The voice acting really brings the story to life, and that starting quest with the gay elf being frozen is rather hilarious

 

[Gragt]

- can I play in 1024x768?

Most definitely.

- anyone here experienced gamebreaking bugs?

The last patch leaves a few bugs in the game but nothing game breaking. One from the top of my mind is a farmer who rewards you by giving you some gold but the pile of gold is bugged and doesn't count for anything so you have a pile of worthless gold... I played the game three times and the worst bug I experienced once was that while solving a theft mystery (I'm staying vague on purpose) a character refused to acknowledge the fact that I collected some evidence and thus did not give me the password for safe passage to the thief hideout. Fortunately you can still force your passage as the guardian will attack you if you do not give him the password but he is a pushover. While not entirely satisfying, it worked. I did not get anything worse than this, of course bear in mind that you have many ways of screwing up quests but that's not bugs.

Now on to gameplay. My biggest gripe with the demo so far is that characters move too fast. I have to pause the game every now and then just to keep up with the characters to interact with them. It's very annoying to rely on pause so often

You mean NPC or your character? Maybe it has to do with the screen size or simply your reflexes. Maybe it is a problem linked to the demo... Can't really help you with that, I can just tell that playing the retail version I never complained about this.

- How is the gameplay like in the full version? What game is the closest comparison that I can draw to DD?

The fighting will invariably draw comparison to Diablo, the attention to detail, world exploration and interaction remind people of Ultima 7. You could also link the game to Baldur's Gate or other IE games with the dialogs and quests.

- I really like the voice acting, and the solid looks to be pretty cliche but well-presented so far. How does this keep up with the rest of the game? Does it degenerate into more hack n slash eventually, or...?

Some voices are good and give a parody feel to the games, other not so much. The main quest story is pretty cliché and ends the way you'll probably expect it to end. If anything I would have expected Larian to take more risks and do something a bit different. The side-quests on the other end offer you some new takes on the genre, often being self-conscious jokes on quests you can find in other games. And the game unfortunately degenerates in hack'n slash at the end but the long middle part is very nice.

- I noticed there aren't any non-combat skills, like stealing. Or maybe I wasn't observant enough in my 10 min playtime. Are there?

There are non-combat skills, including stealing. Nothing like diplomacy or bluff but you have lockpicking or increased field of view. Most skills not used in combat are still used to support combat, for exemple enchanting. So I'd say the majority of skills are used directly or indirectly in combat but you have a few exceptions.

I'm liking what the game's presenting though. The voice acting really brings the story to life, and that starting quest with the gay elf being frozen is rather hilarious

The game is very nice, starts with a very diabloesque dungeon but once you complete the Aleroth quests you're in for a treat until you reach the very end game.

Edit: I feel like questions like these often crop up and I'm always the one to reply to them.

 

[Heresiarch]

The game is very nice indeed. The combat is very very stupid (IMO only slightly better than the Arcanum), but at least the difficulty is low enough to not distract from the better part of the game IE NPC interaction and quests.

The skill system is not balanced at all. Quite like Arcanum in fact - lots of interesting skills, but none too interesting. There is a pick-pocket skill, which is worthless - you'll get rich very fast and there's nothing interesting to steal. There are many spells but only a few is pratical. There are many combat skills but most are pretty meh.

Fortunately you don't seem to looking for a hack'n'slash game, so DD can really fit your taste since it's the closest thing to U7 these days. Lots and lots of little details and interesting quests and lots of humor. And an EXCELLENT soundtrack to boot. The game is very long too, 50 to 60 hours if you take your time to explore - the areas for exploration are huge in this game.

Unfortunately the ending part of the game is extremely boring - the classic huge + boring dungeon mixed with bosses. By the end I just skipped every mob and rushed the bosses instead. The ending is very anti-climatic too...

BTW on my pc the game constantly random crashed to desktop when I enter/leave buildings. Setting the game to use software acceleration stopped it but then made the game run very slow. Hope you don't have my problem.

 

[udm]

Thanks to the two of you, I think I'll be right at home with DD

You mean NPC or your character? Maybe it has to do with the screen size or simply your reflexes. Maybe it is a problem linked to the demo... Can't really help you with that, I can just tell that playing the retail version I never complained about this.

Could be the screen size I guess

 

[SpaceKungFuMan]

I recently completed Divine Divinity on my Macbook running XP with bootcamp, and did not experience that many crashes. There are definitely random crashes though, so definitely save often. I found that the crashes decreased if I played the game at 800x600 instead of the highest supported resolution of 1024x768.

The main problem I had with the game was that the skill system is horribly unbalanced. traps in particular are totally broken. When I got tired of combat at some points in the game, I would just drop 30 steel scorpions and let them clear out the entire area while I did something else. The world interactions and quests definitely make the game a classic, as others have said.

However, I don't think combat is as bad as people make it out to be. Its actually fairly challenging at some points, and the enemies do create a sense of danger, as long as you don't just spam potions and traps. If you avoid potion spamming, combat becames very dangerous, but by the end of the game this is moot, because you have unlimited gold and potions.

If you want to have the best experience possible with the combat, I would recommend the following - 1) don't take the alchemy skill or buy potions. Just use the potions you find 2) don't buy any traps. If you decide to use the trap skill (which I recommend if you're not buying/making overpowered restoration potions) just use the traps you find. 3) don't take enchant weapon. It will make you unreasonably overpowered. If you do these three things, combat will always be a source of danger in the game, and will actually requre that you pause the game in harder fights. Enjoy the game.

 

[Shair]

I agree with the poster above. If you are going to play the game try not to use the scorpion trap skill and from my experience the poison weapon skill too much unless you really get stuck in an area. They pretty much make an otherwise decent hack/slash combat into a joke.

I quite enjoyed the game even though it becomes tiresome in some areas, its pretty solid.

 

[Topdrunkee thy ILLnifique]

So when does the Ultima 7 like character interaction begin?
I de installed this game, because the dungeon in the middle of the town was too damn boring.

I couldn't hold out to see if it got any better.

 

[Gragt]

After the first dungeon.
*cough*sissy*cough*