Original Sin - Site Launched, Developer Video, Blog

Larian has launched the official site for Divinity: Original Sin, featuring a 4:30 developer walkthrough video - a must see for anyone interested in the game. Swen Vincke and producer David play through some sections in multiplayer, demonstrating the interaction, dialogue system, combat and more.

Swen Vincke also posts on his blog about some of the history leading up to the development, their motivation for some of the features and fans' reactions (there's also a list of international previews for those who want to read a press article in their native tongue):

And then, came Divinity II. That one too was supposed to have multiplayer (I have a video from a prototype of that which I’m trying to find so I can post it here). Sadly the multiplayer was scratched when the publisher realized what costs this would bring on the QA front, especially on console. In hindsight, given the effort it took to get Divinity II ready, they were probably right about canceling the multiplayer, but that didn’t prevent me from feeling frustrated about the entire thing, because that was the third time.

So now that we’re finally publishing ourselves, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that multiplayer was one of the very first things on the list. The why of it is quite simple – I really miss a RPG where you can play together with a friend, and discuss how you’re going to handle things. Nobody’s really pulled that off decently in my mind, so I wanted to give it a shot. Personally, I’m hoping that the editor that ships with the game will be good enough to seed a productive modding community, so that I can finally play one of my own games without knowing what’s going to happen & this together with my girlfriend. [...]

On the benefits the MP dialogue system brings to SP:

Also, don’t underestimate what we can do with a system like this in single-player. If you make a storyline where you ensure that there’s always the opportunity for interactions between party-members to be potentially conflicting, you can make good use of that in single player too.

...and on being turn-based:

Active-pause was considered for some time (and we actually started out like this), but in my heart I really wanted to make one of those games that has epic tactical battles, where you really have to think how you’re going to defeat the enemy. And because I’m occasionally very impulsive, one morning I stormed into the office and told the team that we were going to ditch all the hack & slash stuff and go for turn-based. I was ready to go all despot on them should I encounter any resistance, but to my surprise, they were actually quite supportive of that idea. Then I discovered they were a little bit too supportive, because before I knew it I had an ultra-hardcore system on my plate. Eventually we settled on something that I think is quite accessible, but still offers plenty of opportunity for tactical depth.