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Divine Divinity - All News

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Wednesday - April 25, 2018
Monday - September 29, 2014
Monday - April 22, 2013
Thursday - July 05, 2012
Monday - February 13, 2012
Friday - August 26, 2011
Thursday - October 29, 2009
Sunday - September 27, 2009
Saturday - September 19, 2009
Saturday - October 18, 2008
Friday - July 25, 2008
Box Art

Wednesday - April 25, 2018

Divine Divinity - Review

by Silver, 22:09

Divine Divinity has been reviewed by our own GabrielMP_19.

...

The Story of the Marked One

In Divine Divinity, you play as the Marked One. You can create a male or a female character from one out of three classes: warrior, wizard or survivor (rogue), which does not influence almost anything in the story, and only some of the dialogue is changed if you are a male or a female. While you were happily strolling around the village of Aleroth, you are struck by a thunder. That’s when the game begins.

The village of Aleroth is composed of healers and it’s in turmoil because their source of healing magic has been drying and their leader, Mardaneus, has become crazy. After helping the village, you discover that this is only the beginning of your troubles.

[...]

Monday - September 29, 2014

Divine Divinity - Inspired Marketing Edition

by Couchpotato, 06:16

The Rampant Coyote's latest post gives his opinion on the unreleased Divinity: The Sword of Lies. It was the original name for Divine Divinity that was changed.

As I’ve become a little bit of a Larian fanboy, I found myself looking up more information on the Divinity series. It was years before I tried the original game. Try as I might, the name “Divine Divinity” sounded absolutely ridiculous, and in a totally lame display of judging a book by its cover, I assumed that the stupid title revealed a foreign company that had poor grasp of English, and a poor grasp of what would make a good game.

Now, I should know better. I’ve worked with publishers before. I’d heard how the publishers had dictated many elements of the gameplay to Larian. Going back recently and doing a tiny bit of research, I discovered this story, from Larian itself:

“Long story short – contract had Divinity: The Sword of Lies in it. Publisher revised it to Divinity: The Sword of Lies (working title). The day the contract was signed, we were informed the new name was going to be Divine Divinity, courtesy of the CEO who just made tons of cash with Sudden Strike and now figured that any new title needed to have an alliteration in it, or so we were told.

“We told them that was a stupid idea. They didn’t like us telling them it was a stupid idea and they were also the ones checking our milestones so eventually we had to shut up, especially when inevitably we were late with a particular milestone. End of story, the person who came up with it indeed had poor taste in names and I agree that it probably cost us a lot of sales – most people thought it was a porn game.”

Divinity: Sword of Lies would have been a pretty cool title. Maybe not one that attracted me to the game, but certainly not one that would make me dismiss it. I can’t say the title cost them a sale, but I can’t say it didn’t.

But now you know the secrets of 80% of the game marketing gurus out there. I’ve known a handful of pretty sharp ones, but at least in the 90s when I was more closely involved in that side of things, this was exactly how things ran. One more reason to be happy about the indie revolution. Sometimes its nice, in the midst of the crap we have to deal with now, to remember just how much crap we left behind.

So now, I’m sorry, Larian, for assuming you were responsible for the crappy title. I knew you had to make compromises based on publisher demands and budgetary constraints in other areas, so I should have given you the benefit of the doubt.

Monday - April 22, 2013

Divine Divinity - Matt Plays Divine Divinity

by Couchpotato, 04:43

Matt Barton posted a new "Matt Chat" video about Divine Divinity. Enjoy the retrospective video, but be warned it 's over 30 minutes.

 

Source: GameBanshee

Thursday - July 05, 2012

Divine Divinity - Now on Steam

by Dhruin, 22:52

Larian's classic Divine Divinity has been released on Steam for $5.99, offering Larian the chance to make this humorous announcement video:

Monday - February 13, 2012

Divine Divinity - How Lar Tried To Save It

by Dhruin, 20:24

Lar has a fascinating piece on his blog, titled How I tried to save Divine Divinity. This is one for fans of the business side of gaming or who are interested in the history of Divine Divinity or Larian. It's quite long but I enjoyed it - Lar's intro explains the situation:

Back in 2001, Divine Divinity was in serious trouble. Several people at our publisher, CDV, wanted to kill the game because it was late, and our publisher’s producer needed help defending the game at an important internal publisher meeting. The goal of that meeting was  a re-evaluation of their entire portfolio, and I was asked to write up a list of what I considered to be the strong and weak points of the first Divinity.

Back in 2001, Divine Divinity was in serious trouble. Several people at our publisher, CDV, wanted to kill the game because it was late, and our publisher’s producer needed help defending the game at an important internal publisher meeting. The goal of that meeting was  a re-evaluation of their entire portfolio, and I was asked to write up a list of what I considered to be the strong and weak points of the first Divinity.

I figured it might be interesting to share the mail I sent to the producer with you.

Friday - August 26, 2011

Divine Divinity - Review @ Huff Post

by Dhruin, 00:21

The Huffington Post has a review of Divine Divinity nearly 10 years late. Describing it as "some of the greatest role-playing games" the author has ever played, here's a snip:

But the main appeal of this game is that the world it takes place in simply feels alive. Not only is it large, there is so much going on in it, too, and Divinity does an excellent job of creating one hell of an immersive atmosphere that you can almost feel like a part of. One of the ways the game accomplishes this is by sprinkling little events throughout the game world. For example, in the middle of one of the forests there is a series of gold coins laid out in a "trail" that leads off the main path; if you choose to follow the trail of gold, you'll eventually end up into a clearing where a large group of orcs will ambush (and likely kill) you. Another example -- there is a random human army outpost in the middle of the woods that seems friendly enough -- that is, until you enter. Once you enter, a mage from the Black Ring cult (your chief antagonists in the game) magically appears and casts a mind control spell on everyone, turning them all against you. Little things like this really serve to immerse you in the instability and danger that permeates the land. Immersion and narrative are the chief things I value in a video game, and Divinity delivers in spades.

Thursday - October 29, 2009

Divine Divinity - Available at Good Old Games

by Myrthos, 12:12

Finally, Divine Divinity is available now on GoG, with Beyond Divinity following in a few weeks. This release of Divine Divinity contains the latest patch and has the following extras:

General:

  • Feature: Allow more resolutions
  • Feature: Recreated config tool
  • Fixed numerous crashes and freezes
  • Fixed: encumbrance could make items disappear
  • Feature: Tooltips of damage stats on stat screen improved

Skills:

  • Fixed: Spellbooks no longer ignore level requirements
  • Fixed: All weapon expertise skills give percentile bonuses instead of static bonuses
  • Fixed: True Sight damage is now actually used
  • Fixed: Bow and crossbow expertise bonuses are now actually used
  • Fixed: Divine Eye removes the fog of war
  • Fixed: Deadly Gift's Scorpion Trap is less powerful
  • Fixed: Resurrected enemies die after region swap

Here is the info from GoG:

A Touch of Divinity at GOG.com

Shortly before the release of Divinity II: Ego Draconis, the first two entries in the acclaimed RPG series are revived at the DRM-free digital distribution site.

Warsaw, Poland – October 29, 2009GOG.com (http://www.gog.com), the only place that brings back affordable memories from gamers’ youth with no DRM, has signed an agreement with Belgian independent game developer, Larian Studios. Thanks to the agreement, fans of role-playing games around the world are getting the opportunity to play DRM-free and XP & Vista compatible versions of Larian’s acclaimed Divine Divinity and Beyond Divinity. The first part of the series is now available on GOG.com for only $5.99, while Beyond Divinity will be available soon for $9.99!

In 2002, as many RPGs made the transition to full 3D environments, the creators of Divine Divinity decided to make a classic isometric RPG which, as stated by PC Zone, became “living proof that, when tailored by the right hands, isometric RPGs can still be as captivating and challenging as their 3D counterparts.” The game takes the player on a fantastic quest in a land torn apart by corruption and dark magic. During his journey the player will travel across a huge and richly detailed world, become involved in an intriguing plot and complete loads of engaging quests.

I remember the release of Divine Divinity as if it was yesterday. We had no clue how people would react to the game and weren’t sure that our RPG mix was going to appeal. Then, suddenly we got bombarded with emails and forum reactions from people enjoying the game, and received award after award from the specialized press. It was a very rewarding time, and I look forward to see the reactions from the GOG.com audience,” said Swen Vincke, CEO at Larian Studios. “GOG.com approaching us was also the perfect opportunity for us to address a couple of issues in the original game, and introduce support for higher resolutions.”

Divine Divinity and Beyond Divinity are games that really impressed a lot of RPG fans when they came out, but also were overlooked by many,” said Adam Oldakowski, Managing Director of GOG.com. “Just before the release of another game in the Divinity series, we thought it would be great to reintroduce these great games to the GOG.com audience. I'm sure they'll love it.”

Divine Divinity is already available for download at GOG.com for $5.99, DRM-free and compatible with Windows XP and Vista. Beyond Divinity will be added to the catalogue in the coming weeks.

Sunday - September 27, 2009

Divine Divinity - Remastered Update

by Dhruin, 12:13

Thanks to Alrik for this update on the remastering of Divine Divinity from the official forums:

Thanks for the feedback so far everyone! I'm your friendly neighbourhood remasterer, and I have a couple of questions and remarks about the suggestions you guys (and girls) have made [...]

- I can happily inform you that resolutions are no longer limited: you can play the game on any resolution that your video card supports, and I must say that it looks freakin' awesome!

- A number of skills have already been fixed or rebalanced, and some tooltips have been made a little clearer (for example, the tooltip for damage on the stats screen now shows a more elaborate breakdown of everything that contributes to your damage).

Please keep those suggestions and bugreports coming in!

Saturday - September 19, 2009

Divine Divinity - Remastered Version Under Way

by Dhruin, 14:17

Swen 'Lar' Vincke has posted on the Divinity forums that they are working on a remastered version of the original game for digital distribution, supporting modern operating systems, higher resolutions and possibly more:

Hello all,

Don't take this as an official announcement, but more as a bit of a heads up for you very much appreciated people still active in these parts of the forum. We've quietly been working on remastering the original for release through digital distribution, upgrading it to work well with Vista/XP and supporting higher resolutions. Time permitting we'll probably even modify a couple of things, so here's the question. If you could choose only one thing, what's the thing you'd really like to see changed in the game code ?

Thanks to Mo on our forums.

Saturday - October 18, 2008

Divine Divinity - Move Completed

by Myrthos, 01:35

I've completed the move of the Divinity contents from the previous server to this location. As the CRM software is completely different it took some time to do that. You can find the complete overview of the Diviniity contents here.

Friday - July 25, 2008

RPGWatch Feature: Divine Divinity Retrospective

by Dhruin, 09:55

Michael "txa1265" J. Anderson continues the irregular series of retrospectives we hope to bring you, this time taking a five-year look back at Divine Divinity.  Here's an excerpt:

One of the quirky 'top whatever' lists that appears every now and then is the list of worst names for video games. And somewhere on every one of those lists is Divine Divinity. Yeah, it IS pretty obvious why.

The game would also appear on another list - if some one could figure out how to name it. That list would be 'best deep role playing game that fans of classic RPG's have ignored because it features action-RPG combat and has a very difficult and long dungeon in the beginning.' So you can see I won't be getting a job naming lists anytime soon. Point is, this is a game that many RPG fans tried the demo and felt it was just yet another Diablo Clone and left it behind. Something about the old saying 'you only get one chance to make a first impression' springs to mind.

Read it all here.

Information about

Divine Divinity

Developer: Larian Studios

SP/MP: Single-player
Setting: Fantasy
Genre: Action-RPG
Combat: Real-time
Play-time: 40-60 hours
Voice-acting: Partially voiced

Regions & platforms
World
· Homepage
· Platform: PC
· Released: 2002-08-03
· Publisher: Unknown