An anonymous reader (honest!) writes in to point out Beyond Divinity has dropped to $5.99 on GOG.

A DTP press release states that the release date for the German speaking countries has been set to the 30th of July. This date is actually earlier than the dates mentioned before. How often does that happen...

In addition there is a new (German) trailer to be found on the web, like on youtube and some fresh new screenshots that you can find in our gallery.

Alrik writes in to point out Focus Home Interactive will publish Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga (presumably in Europe).  The PR on the website isn't clear if they will also distribute the separate Flames of Vengeance addon or only combined Dragon Knight Saga.  Here's the text:

We are pleased to announce that Focus Home Interactive will publish in October, Larian Studios' role playing game: Divinity II – The Dragon Knight Saga on PC and Xbox 360.

Divinity II – The Dragon Knight Saga includes the original adventure “Ego Draconis”, and “Flames of Vengeance”, the Dragon Knight's new adventure that continues the epic story and adds dozens of hours of additional gameplay. Divinity II – Ego Draconis appears here as an entirely new and re-mastered edition with improved graphics and content that make the game even more beautiful and more impressive than ever before!

As for Flames of Vengeance, this new adventure brings players new quests, new creatures and many new items. Flames of Vengeance also benefits from all the graphical improvements made to Ego Draconis, and delivers a spectacular finale to the Dragon Knight Saga!

Divinity II – The Dragon Knight Saga offers an epic total of over 60 hours of gameplay and more than 180 original quests that combine into a fantastic role playing experience. We invite you to discover more about Divinity II – The Dragon Knight Saga throughout a series of new images, that offer a glimpse into the new adventure Flames of Vengeance.

Divinity II – The Dragon Knight Saga includes the complete and re-mastered adventure Ego Draconis, and the brand new adventure Flames of Vengeance. The game will be released in Europe in October 2010 on PC and Xbox 360.

Gorath points out the upcoming GDC will feature a panel with BioWare's Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk and Obsidian's Feargus Urquhart discussing the production of the classic, Baldur's Gate II:

Ten years ago, the highest rated role-playing game of all time launched in Baldur's Gate 2. The team included Bioware, Interplay and Black Isle and the result was an epic fantasy RPG that inspired a new generation of game developers and has endured the test of time. In this special 10 year retrospective session, Dr. Ray Muzyka, Dr. Greg Zeschuk, and Feargus Urguhardt who co-produced the game will look back at how the game was made, received, and how making games has changed. Attendees will see living legends discuss the challenges of development and why its important to give it everything youve got in order to wow the audience and be relevant even a decade later.

We'll bring you whatever coverage we can find after the panel.

In a new status update, Lar mentiones that besides a release of Flame of Vengance also the release of the Dragon Knight Saga is eminent. The latter release combines a revamped Ego Draconis and Flame of Vengance game in one

Release Ego Draconis (remastered heavily) together with Flames Of Vengeance on PC & X360 under the name The Dragon Knight Saga.

You can take that "remastered heavily" part seriously as we've literally redesigned almost all dragon parts, especially the flying fortresses, drastically changed loot/enemies and retouched quite some artwork. The net result is a much more streamlined experience that is a lot more fun (we think)

The international PC versions of FOV will be released simultanously with The Dragon Knight Saga whereas the German version of FOV is about to be declared gold, as in, next week I think.

Thanks Alrik and Omega.

The author of this Planescape: Torment retrospective at RPGFan makes his feelings known right from the beginning, and it will strike a chord with a few readers:

They don't make games like this anymore. Bringing video games to a wider audience has its merits, namely making video games a more acceptable form of entertainment, but increased accessibility and multiplayer support has wreaked significantly more havoc than good in recent years. And it only looks to be getting worse. In an effort to make games that every Joe Simpleton can play and enjoy, developers have streamlined gameplay, simplified story, axed challenge, and watered down the single-player experience. Developers have thus spawned a landfill of shovelware and dreck so large it could contain every one of Peter Molyneux's unfulfilled promises and save room for those from his next game. Everyone from Nintendo to Bioware has gone to the dark side, giving us pitifully easy Zeldas and overly streamlined Mass Effects.

There will never be another Planescape: Torment. Released in 1999, it is better than almost every other game in the last decade, better than perhaps all but one game released in the last five years, and certainly better than any RPG released during that time. Torment is as complex in story and characters as it is in gameplay, and we'll never see anything like this again if the world continues to worship multiplayer experiences and developers continue to target an audience that includes everyone and their unborn children.

Thanks, Necrosis!

In a new status update Swen "Lar" Vincke states that the German version is done (if nothing pops up). In this update he mentions the reason why the German version is released first (again!!).

I can hear our non-German fans sigh - why once again the German version first ?

The sigh is warranted as we didn't expect it to turn out that way, and actually hoped that we were going to have a simultaneous release, but unfortunately it turned out that way, though I have to say in the same breath that there are some fortunate bits in there too. The reason for a split release is pretty simple - different distributors in different territories were signed at different dates and have different marketing approaches and probably also different target audiences. I know we haven't announced yet who'll be doing the publishing and distribution of the other language versions, but that'll change pretty soon. We actually just signed the deals last week, so PR/Marketing need some time to warm up.

In addition he gives some background information about Divine Divinity and that even though they tried to delay the game as it had too many issues, it did not help. An interesting read.

Thanks Alrik for the information.

The Larian forums have noticed a video on Youtube showing off some Flames of Vengeance footage.  The video comes from a German TV gaming show and features dtp's Claas Wolter demoing the game; fortunately, there are English subtitles.  The clip was posted recently but I'm not sure how old it is, because Claas mentions an X360 Live release, which we now know is a problem.

Thanks to Alrik for pointing out this status update at the Larian forums, with studio head Swen Vincke saying Flames of Vengeance is done.  Here's a partial sip from his lengthy post:

Quite a lot happened since last I gave a bit of a status update here: Divinity 2: Ego Draconis got released, and we’ve basically already completed Divinity 2: Flames of Vengeance already, so the last you can accuse me of, is being present here too much
One of the reasons I’m idle is that for once and for the moment, everything seems to be running smoothly. This is probably the first time that my team is so relaxed before a major release (which Flames of Vengeance is to us) and the reason is very simple: the game is actually ready.

Over the last couple of days I played it through, with a big book in my hand and a fresh pencil, ready to be merciless, but at the end of the ride, I hadn’t even filled a single page with things that drop-dead-needed-to-be-done-now-or-we-can’t-ship. I jotted down some things about legal lines, installer texts, middleware logos, but actual gameplay things, almost none. Compare that with the release of Divinity 2 where the day we shipped I had almost a book full of things that I still wanted to be done but couldn’t as the pressure to release was so high. Very big difference and quite a nice feeling actually. But still strange – never happened before. Maybe we’re actually learning after all this time how to do this.

Larian has launched FlamesOfVengeance.com for their upcoming Divinity II addon.  There are comparison screens, a FAQ and other infos and new forums have been launched at Larian.  According to the FAQ, the engine improvements will be released as a patch for the base game.  The addon itself will run to around 20 hours, though the X360 version might be delayed because it's too large as a DLC, so other distribution methods are being investigated.

It's been a while since we've posted a Divinity 2 review, so here's one at ComputerGames.ro.  The article is the mirror of many others, with the author feeling the first part of the game is a waste of time and enjoying the Dragon form part.  The score is 70% and here's a snip:

It’s odd how the characters can be so flat, lacking any cultural or political color, but then, when it comes to the hero’s mission, they suddenly get possessed with the all-knowing divine discourse. Many times you’ll get the feeling that you’re walking through a mechanical universe that ignores personal details as long as they’re outside the initial design scope. The consequence is that NPCs don’t react at all to the character’s sex, appearance, or even the decisions you take during missions.

I guess I’ve been spoiled with Dragon Age, where each hero had a very coherent background story and could thoroughly influence the narrative. But I feel Divinity 2 is too superficial when it comes to interaction. At least doing something else with a dragon other than filling the screen with blood is welcome.

Remember Greg Kasavin?  Former EiC of GameSpot?  GameBanshee has noticed his blog and an article called The Gift of Torment, on one of the pioneering aspects of Torment's dialogue.  He makes some curious assertions about Mass Effect 2 but it's otherwise a nice piece:

In other words, Torment is the first RPG to introduce player intent into dialogue, which may be contradictory to the substance of the dialogue -- it's a game in which you can say one thing and mean another, and use this to deliberately lie at times, by means of the authored choices presented to you.

In a typical RPG, you might be asked by a character to retrieve an item, and tell that person "Yes, I'll do it" even if you as a player don't really know if you're going to do it or not -- probably you just want the quest logged in case you stumble upon it. You don't think about these types of interactions, and, as evidenced by the completely disposable text content for quests in games like World of Warcraft, they do little to build a meaningful connection between you, your character, or the gameworld. But in this same type of situation, Torment typically would give you at least two options: "Yes, I'll do it" (Truth) and "Yes, I'll do it" (Lie). And it would fully support these choices -- lying would affect your character's moral alignment, leading to other changes in gameplay. But even when it didn't really matter whether you told the truth or not, the game made you stop and think about what you were saying.

Well, the official PR finally got here. It doesn't say much we didn't already know, other than an August date. Here we go:

Divinity II: Flames of Vengeance – dtp entertainment and Larian Studios announce Add On for PC and Xbox LIVE

Hamburg/Germany, March 04^th, 2010 – Aleroth, once a war-torn city, now holds the next challenges for computer role playing gamers. Rivellon, the world of Divinity II: Ego Draconis, is still not safe. In Divinity II: Flames of Vengeance, the game’s official add on, players must face the evil once more.

Soon they’ll recognize that many of the characters they met in the main game aren’t who they pretended to be. Divinity II: Flames of Vengeance continues where Divinity II: Ego Draconis left off. "In Flames of Vengeance, the player picks up the story of the Dragon knight and guides him to his ultimate destiny. Along the way several accounts are settled, and the answers to many questions in the Divinity universe revealed. We've also taken the opportunity to give the engine a solid overhaul, improving performance and graphics quality along the way", Swen Vincke, Creative Director and CEO of the development team Larian Studios, explains.
Divinity II: Flames of Vengeance, the official add on to Divinity II: Draconis, offers more than 30 quests and about 15 hours of gameplay.

dtp entertainment and Larian Studios will publish Divinity II: Flames of Vengeance for PC and on Xbox LIVE^® Marketplace for the Xbox 360^® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft in August 2010.

“Divinity II genuinely surprised me”, “1up.com” stated on Divinity II: Ego Draconis.  “I had an absolute blast playing through Divinity 2: Ego Draconis”, said the reviewer of “Zeitgeist Game Reviews”. German magazine “GameStar” stated the game was “the RPG surprise of 2009 so far” and honored it with an award for special “quest quality”.

We haven't seen that official dtp announcement for Flames of Vengeance but Larian needs play-testers, anyway.  You'll need to live close by, as Larian always tests at their offices:

We are conducting invitation only play tests. If you live in the neighbourhood of Gent and want to spend some hours trying out our next RPG, please send an email to playtest@larian.com. Please include what days you think you might be available in April 2010. These are gameplay and focus tests, so you will be sent a small questionnaire. This will allow us to establish what type of gamer you are and fit you in the right group of players.

Please take into account that you will be asked to sign a confidentiality agreement (also known as a non disclosure agreement).

You will not receive any compensation for participating in these tests, but you might enjoy the experience as we think you might have fun.

If all goes well a new expansion to Divinity 2 named Flames of Vengeance will be announced tomorrow by DTP. Larian Studios CEO Swen Vincke confirmed the announcement and the expansion at their forums.

As mentioned in their forums some information and screenshots can be found Gamer.ru and on Ag.ru. All information is in the Russian language, so I don't have a clue what it says but apparently this is a list of features:

• 15 hours of gameplay
• many optional quests
• mindreading is more important and is needed to complete at least some quests
• interesting non-combat oriented quests (e.g. in one quest you're supposed to give a theatrical performance)
• better interface
• better AI
• better graphics (DirectX 11 support)
• you will be able to export your character from the original Divinity 2 or start a new one
• skill trees will be expanded

Divine Divinity is a classic that uniquely combines Ultima with hack'n'slash combat. With the move to full 3D and consoles, how does the sequel stack up?  Our review has two complete opinions - one from Corwin, and one from txa1265.  Here's a sample:

Having detailed my frustrations, let me outline why I think this should be considered as one of the most enjoyable games released in 2009. For my first 20-30 hours or so, I found this game to be an absolute blast. It drew me away from Dragon Age: Origins and kept me playing. The game makes much of your eventually getting a Dragon Tower, but don’t rush it - the first half of the game is easily the best. Once I got my tower, all the things I really love about rpg’s virtually disappeared and I was left with an action/aerial combat game.

Head here to read it all.

We don't normally track prices but since cdv sent out this PR...

Becoming A Dragon Knight Just Got Easier With Divinity II – Ego Draconis Reduced Price

Hello - 

We wanted to give you a heads-up that Divinity II – Ego Draconis is now available for only $39.99 on both the Xbox 360® videogame and entertainment system from Microsoft and Windows PC.

Be sure to visit www.honorofrivellon.com for tons of game and contest info!

GamersInfo has a review of Divinity II.  No score as usual for this site but the article is positive, despite some issues:

There is something strange about Divinity II that I haven’t been able to explain to myself. The game has a notable lack of polish in numerous areas. There are little things all over the place that could use tweaking or even radical changes. The dialogue and scripts for characters feels amateurish, the combat system doesn’t really seem to work well at all and for a good portion of the game, I felt completely abandoned. Despite those things, there is something a little magical in Divinity II; the world and sense of discovery I had as I explored it were fantastic. The history of the dragons and lore of the world along with the very memorable plot twists combined to pull me in.

Divinity II for the PC has been reviewed at GameShark, with a rating of B- and recommended for Gothic fans :

Once you complete your ritual, all hell breaks loose. A Dragon Knight has been spotted in a nearby settlement and thus it’s time to get to work. Don't get too excited, however, as you're a new Dragon Slayer and not ready for the battle. It's time for some "fetch" quests! As expected, you'll spend a lot of time on various inane quests that the townspeople have few qualms about sending you, a highly-skilled warrior, to manage. "I miss my pet pigs!" No problem, I'll handle it.

Actually, the simple quests give you a chance to take a peek at the outside world, which is the best part of Divinity II. There's something mysterious and enchanting about seeing a far off part of the terrain and thinking "I can eventually get there." Much like the Gothic games, you can wander the countryside and find enemies to fight… whether you're strong enough to fight them or not.