GZ Interview
10/4/02

Go behind Divine Divinity with Larian Studios’ project leader Swen Vincke
By Michael Lafferty

There is chaos in the world, and you have been chosen to save it. The only problem is that you can’t remember who you are.

Divine Divinity is a role-playing game from Larian Studios and CDV Software that delves into the realm of Rivellon. The world has been torn apart by corruption and dark magic. Monsters are everywhere and they are coming after you.  It is time to discover your destiny.

Featuring four map totaling lands from small, peaceful villages to demon-infested wasteland, game players will be able to choose one of six different characters as their avatar. There are three main character types: mage, warrior and survivor. Up to 96 skills can be learned.

The game also features a day-night cycle, more than 150 NPCs, and the enemy will communicate with each other and employ different tactics. Of course, there is a main quests, but a host of sub-quests should keep players active for the estimated 40 hours of game play the title boasts.

Swen Vincke, project leader of Larian Studios, talked with GameZone about this title.

Question: For some time now, Divine Divinity has been drawing comparisons to both Diablo and Neverwinter Nights. While that may be flattering, what elements do you feel will make this game stand apart from such comparisons?

Swen: “I can't comment on Neverwinter Nights since I haven't gotten round to play it yet, but when it comes to Diablo, I think it should be pretty clear. Divine Divinity offers plenty of things that weren't present in Diablo. The freedom, the interactivity, the classless skill system, the list really is too long to sum it all up.  I think that the thing that makes Divine Divinity really stand out is that you can play it in so many ways. We see people play Divinity as a hard-core role playing game to the point that they decorate their own houses and then we see people kill almost everything that moves to progress through the story.”

Q: The name of this game is quite unusual. Can you please explain how it came about and how it pertains to the story?

Swen: “Well, originally it was called Divinity, The Sword of Lies until some marketing genius figured out that Divine Divinity sounded better. Divine Divinity it was and Divine Divinity it has become.  What it has to do with the story is that one of the main quests the player has to do is to become one of the Divine.”

Q: Presumably other pieces of Divinity are scattered throughout the land. Are there other characters imbued with these powers, and how did the pieces of Divinity become part of those throughout the lands?

Swen: “The start of the story is that you see this evil sect called the Black Ring try to summon a Divinity and destroy her. There's a prophecy that suggests that a Divine one will be marked and blessed by this Divinity and that this Divine one will thwart their plans. However, the prophecy also suggests that this marking and blessing can be stopped.

“Being very enterprising they decide to summon the Divinity and get rid of her right away in order to not run too much risk. Things however do not unfold as they had planned, and when they try to kill her, the Divinity splits in three parts and escapes in the bodies of three marked ones of which the player is one. Throughout the game the player will search the other marked ones, try to figure out what it means to be marked one, and eventually try to release the Divinity in himself and become a Divine one.”

Q: Are the avatars customizable, and if so, what options will players have?

Swen: “No, there are six player character types from which you can select your character. Since the skill system in Divine Divinity is classless, the choice doesn't have a large impact on what you'll be able to do in the game, except that there are some basic traits, which are affected by this choice. For instance, if you choose a warrior over a survivor (a kind of James Bond character), you'll notice that you attract much more enemies because you make more noise, though you still are capable of learning all the skills from the survivor.”

Q: What kind of creatures will challenge this quest, and are there side quests along the game path? Is the game linear or open-ended?

Swen: “Divinity contains a huge number of side quests and the only thing that is linear in the game is some of the main story, though even there there's quite some non-linearity. If anything, this is one of the game's strongest points. In terms of creatures, you'll find really a lot of them, some of them pretty surprising. There's for instance a genetic accident called ‘the pet’ who can do some pretty nasty tricks.”

Q: “Can you tell us a little bit about the lands featured in this game?

Swen: “The land is called Rivellon and it's dominated by four key localities – the Dukedom of Ferol, the populous town of Verdistis, the shadow-haunted Dark Forest and the legendary Dwarven halls. The capital of Ferol is Rivertown, set amid a pretty network of villages and farming communities. The chief export of Ferol is farm produce, as the ducal fields are among the most bountiful in Rivellon. Duke Ferol resides with his family at Stormfist Castle – an ancient fortress, originally raised by the corrupt sect of wizards who later became known as the Damned.

“The Ferol family drove the dark mages from Stormfist centuries ago and have done much to rebuild and renovate the building. Further to the north lies Verdistis: a wealthy city that is technically under Duke Ferol's rule, but with a town council that has developed a reasonable degree of autonomy. Verdistis is well known for its impressive guild houses and the decorous mansions of its noble families.

“South you'll find the dark forest and beyond it the mountains which are said the house the Dwarven halls and the river of gold. There's a lot more than what I just described here, but that
gives you a quick overview. The one thing that deserves mentioning is that the place is huge.”

Q: What was the most difficult part of this game vision to render, and what is your favorite aspect of the game?

Swen: “The complexity was really hard to manage. There's so much you can do in Divinity, and coping with that and the fact that eventually the player still had to be able to finish the game hasn't been a cakewalk.

“While I thought that after three years of development I figured out most of the variations on gameplay, the feedback from the players has shown me to be very wrong. The things they come up with is really amazing, and I think that that is exactly what I prefer the most – the fact that players can experiment so freely in the game world knowing that they'll still be able to progress through the main story.”

Q: What kind of engine does the game use and what did it enable you to do to advance the graphical elements of the program? Can you tell us a little bit about the combat system the game uses?

Swen: “The engine was written from the ground up and while it's 2D, I think it still stands it ground. Where possible, the engine uses 3D acceleration to render the fancy stuff. The most notable fact is the engine's RPG-capabilities. If you roam around in Rivellon a bit, especially once you left the first village, you'll see what I mean – there’s really a lot going on and the environment is very dynamic.

Q: The RPG genre is once again on the rise (it seems to operate in a cyclical pattern of popularity). Where do you think the genre is headed?

Swen: “I have this acronym that I use to describe what defines a good RPG experience – it’s called FUME and stands for The Freedom to excel, a Universe to excel in, the Motivation to continue on excelling and Enemies to excel against. I think you'll keep on seeing advances in all four of these aspects. The freedom part means that you should be able to role-play in universes where you can do pretty much what you want. The Universe part means that these worlds should be modeled really well and acts as real worlds. The Motivation part means that there'll always need to be good incentives to drive the player. The Enemies part means that the antagonists, necessary to define the player, will need to be fleshed out and implemented really well.

“Every single new great RPG that comes out makes advances in some of these parts, and I think the next great big leap will come from an RPG that advances all four of these things.”  

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