The Let's Play Archive

Divine Divinity

by Stabbey_the_Clown

Part 1: Introduction




Introduction



Divine Divinity is an Action-RPG-Sandbox that combines the fast-paced combat of Diablo 2 with the excessive dialogue and "sandbox" nature of Morrowind, although it's not as good at either as those respective games. There is a lot of reading in the game, and also in this LP, so you've been warned.

I'm playing through the LP with version 1.34a, and version 1.40 came out partway through, so some things I mention working now will NOT work under version 1.40. See Version 1.40 patch notes further down this page for more details .

Purchase Divine Divinity at GoG.com for $6 USD. (It's a bargain at that price). The download includes the manual, wallpapers, prequel story (which has spoilers for the LP later on, so you are warned), and the soundtrack.

Divine Divinity - Theme Music
Download (Thanks to Grawl)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq60D8pmLxI



The game is set on the planet Rivellon, which is inhabited by at least six sentient races (Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Lizards, and Imps). The player character is Marked at the start of the game and has to fulfill a - all together now - Ancient Prophecy. The story is mostly predictable and follows many conventions, but there are some really good plot twists thrown in. Please don't post spoilers - especially for the plot twists, or talk about the final part of the game without spoiler-tags.



There are two sequels: Beyond Divinity and Divinity 2: Ego Draconis. The backstory for those games contains spoilers for the end of this game, so please don't post any backstory for those games at all.

I'll be doing the LP both as an informative LP, and as a first-person narrative. The game's own writing has a good supply of comedy and sarcasm, so there will be plenty of humor as well. The main character has a bit of a personality, being snarky comes naturally to him or her. I am aware that first-person narratives aren't the most popular medium here, especially for plot-heavy games, but I specifically constructed my story to not interfere with the main plot, although I will not say they are unrelated. The aspects of the main character which my narrative reveals were crafted to be relevant to the main plot of the game. Almost everything has a purpose.



Mostly though, the narrative is there to give the world added depth and detail. I won't be writing any romance or sex scenes, and the main character will not substitute swearing every fourth word for wit.

To assist my narrative, I'll be making extensive use of faked/photoshopped images, which are very easy to make in the game. I'll also be adding and changing some dialogue. I'll change as little of the original dialogue as possible, jsut enough to make it seem less awkward (like having the main character introduce himself). At the end of each update I'll include a Behind the Scenes section which includes a map (if applicable), and details such as "What's fake in this update?". The "What's fake" stuff will be in spoiler-tags to preserve immersion as much as possible, while still being honest.

Unfortunately because the first area of the game was designed and released as a stand-alone demo, the main plot doesn't start for several hours (mostly spent in the longest dungeon of the game). The game itself doesn't provide much of a plot hook. Unfortunately, the first part can't be skipped entirely because it does eventually tie into the main plot. Even once the main plot starts, the player character still doesn't understand what's going on for quite a long time.

I'm not doing this as an audience participation LP because the game has so much content as to be overwhelming, and it doesn't hold your hand. In many side quests, the solution isn't out in the open, you have to actively search and investigate to solve them. Letting the audience choose the direction of my wanderings could easily break or shortcut quests.



When I say that the game is a sandbox, I'm not exaggerating. After you get out of the starting area (which takes 4-7 hours and brings your character to about level 10), three huge maps are opened up for you to explore.

You can move a lot of things in the game world, including scenery rocks. You can steal pretty much anything, and kill pretty much anything, including innocent children.

Classes (Click for video)


Divine Divinity's sandbox nature extends to your character classes - there are three basic classes, Warrior, Wizard, and Survivor (the stealth class), all of which come in male and female versions. You can choose from any of the 96 88 skills (each with 5 ranks) available to the classes. Since you can only reach about level 50 or so, and there are no respecs, choosing the right combination of skills requires some thought and planning.

I'll be choosing a male wizard because it makes combat a lot more varied for the reader, because magic isn't allowed in some areas, and because you can find random free skills (spellbooks) in the world, and I'll be exploiting the fuck out of that. Also, I simply can't stand the thought of slowly beating everything to death, especially towards the end of the game. VERSION 1.40 CHANGES: While spellbooks are still available for free on bookshelves, you can no longer use them before you meet the level requirements, so there's less incentive to search every shelf.

Embedded videos are taking the place of animated GIF's, and are meant to be watched immediately as you reach them. Other videos on Viddler are optional and usually feature voice-acting. They're supplemental, not meant to be watched in place of reading the thread.

You may notice that I'm using funny names for the months. That's not my preference, the game uses those. Unfortunately, I couldn't find names for all the months (I even asked someone at Larian studios if they knew them all, and they said to just make them the rest). The ones in bold are taken from the game, the rest I made up to sound close enough that you get the idea (if I find more month names, I may go back and replace mine with theirs.)

January = Aventuris
February = Febirium
March = Marlanius
April = Apirius
May = Madaylum
June = Junar
July = Jullusa
August = Fengali
September = Sembten (at least 32 days)
October = Octavianus
November = Novomurus
December = Declianum


Version 1.40 Patch Notes

Version 1.4A is the newest version.
This version has been patched to the latest available patch, so patching the game is not necessary and not recommended. These changes are only available on the re-release of Divine Divinity. There is no patch to upgrade previous versions of the game to 1.40.

Extra fixes and features have been added to this version since the last patch. They are:

General:
Skills:
Music:

One of the best features of the game is the soundtrack, done by Russian composer Kirill Pokrovsky. He put up links to rapidshare to download the track, and Grawl has generously offered to host it on somesingawful. It's 46 files and 133 MB.

Divine Divinity Soundtrack (46 files, 133 MB - Thanks to Grawl for the mirror).

I've posted links to youtube videos of the game music to help you get the right feel of the area while reading.