Divinity: Original Sin Previews

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Written by WorstUsernameEver on March 29th, 2013

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Original Sin keeps a record of each player's actions, building a sort of personality profile by measuring how trusting, honest and aggressive they are. These evolving traits colour inter-party dialogue and the whole system presents a well-worked meeting between player choice and actual roleplaying, with the flexible but developing '˜role' that the term implies (as opposed to '˜you have a sword and your numbers go up'). In Original Sin, you have the freedom of a fantasy world, but your choices have consequences down the line.

Those consequences are not necessarily scripted. Become more deceitful and, sure, the game may remind you with textual cues, but Larian are creating something vanishingly rare an RPG with a world that is founded on systems rather than scripts. That's not to say there isn't a huge amount of text in the game, nor that it's uninteresting, but Original Sin encourages experimentation, in both design and play.

Thieving is a good example. There's a small market early in the game and it's possible to steal from the stalls. In fact, it's possible to steal just about anything not since those heady nights in The Blue Boar have I been so inclined to fill my pockets with cutlery and bowls, and a new crafting system means even the smallest piece of junk might have a purpose.

If you're spotted in the act of committing a crime, the owner of the stall will react, but not always with a ready-built line of dialogue. More often than not, he'll simply follow his programming and shout for help to fetch some guards, who will then follow their programming and chase the player, who will then either fight, flee or surrender. Events cascade and it's to Larian's credit that they allowed me to saunter out of the controlled paths of the planned preview and play with what interest me most the cogs and gears that run the machine. I want to explore the sharp edges of the world.

Divinity: Origin Sin has been launched on Kickstarter when the foundations for a promising title have already been laid. What I saw of Original Sin in London was crude albeit it promising. Producer David Walgrave a microphone wielding metal singer fully admitted that in its current state, Original Sin wasn't fit for press demo. Whilst I understood his worries, the primary game mechanics, tonality, and dynamic were certainly apparent. So what is Original Sin?

(The typical thing you find in RPG's is that they start off high, and then they drop usually around the middle of the game. That's what we're trying to prevent happening with this one,) said Swen, talking about the state of RPG's. The team seem to be approaching this isometric, turn based RPG from the perspective that enormity and mechanical fidelity are two of the most important things. The visual style slightly cartoony seems to allow the developer to stay within budget, whilst broadening the scale and depth of the game world. Likewise, what the game might (lack) in voice acting it makes up for in the amount of dialogue, and the amount of NPC's.

(There are more NPC's in the first area of Original Sin than in the whole of Divinity II. That's over 300 NPC's in the first area alone. So if you really want to add visuals and high quality voice then you will spend a truck load of money.)

The game itself is built upon cooperative play. Creators Swen Vincke and David Walgrave wanted to create a game that they could play together. A game where choice and consequences mattered for each player, in the form of combat and in conversations within the game. The dialogue is revolutionary for an RPG and is quite staggering. One of the first interactions I made in the world was with a giant clam. He wanted me to throw him back in the water. As I was pondering his fate, the person controlling the other player came over to me and was suddenly involved in the conversation. I didn't want to throw him back, yet he did. The dialogue involved choices for both of our characters, and we disagreed to the end about the poor clam's fate. Eventually, a conclusion was drawn in the form of an unseen dice roll. The clam was thrown back into the sea, and he threw out treasure from the depths as a reward.

This system of branching dialogue that is dependent upon each player's interaction is paramount in Divinity: Original Sin. If ever there was a game in which you wanted to roleplay, this would be that game. As you flesh out your character in dialogue, a reputation and social status is charted for your actions. Some choices may also be tied directly to stats, such as using strength for intimidation. It is all very reminiscent of the tabletop RPGs of yore, in which you truly become a character.

Divinity: Original Sin is like the other Divinity games a classless game where you can develop your character into whatever you like. To do that you can modify the primary stats of each of the characters whenever you level up:

• Strength influences the damage for non-magic non-ranged weapons and the weapons you can use.
• Dexterity influences the damage for ranged weapons and what you can carry
• Intelligence influences the damage with magic, which spells you can use and the amount of mana.
• Constitution influences the amount of hit points and resistances, like poison and disease.
• Speed influences how far you can walk with one action point and your defense against attacks.
• Perception influences how good you are in attacking someone, the chance to hit, and how far you can see and how well you can hear.

Next to these primary stats there are many more secondary stats, like how well you can inflict damage, how good your resistances are for specific damage types, but also non-combat related stats like charisma, luck, affinity and affection. The secondary stats are influenced by the primary stats and by your actions in the game.

Any opponent you encounter is using the same system and can have access to the same spells and weapons as you would have. To defeat them you will have to take into account what their strengths and weaknesses are. A fire elemental for example cannot be harmed by fire and could even heal if you throw a fireball at it. Although for a fire elemental it is obvious that it has a high resistance against fire and a low resistance against cold, for many other opponents it is not. The game does provide an option to check what the statistics are of your opponents depending on your intelligence level. A higher level will show you more stats. To temporarily see more stats you can also eat specific food like fish, which is one of the things that increases your intelligence for a short time.

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