First, let me say I've literally played 5 minutes of DD, so if this is a dumb question please forgive :)

But....I did notice there's a black fog of war all around one side of the screen when you play which, if this continues thru the whole game, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to play it as it's driving me NUTS.

Is it possible to get rid of it or does it just go away eventually? And, yeah, I know dumb question :)

Edit: I'm beginning to think i"m stuck with it
:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEe0Iju2cc8&feature=relmfu

In which case, I'm just going to ditch the game as I can't play it like that. It's BEYOND annoying and absolutely pointless!

The fog of war will clear as you explore (unless you are at the edge of the map).

Eventually sight bonuses will start showing up on equipment. Otherwise, you can learn Elven Sight (much more effective) and Ranger Sight (if you have the skill points to spare and really want to maximize your sight range).

If you cast Wizard's Sight twice in the same location (cast it a second time before the fog-of-war fills in again from the first) it will remain clear. If necessary, hold the shift key down (or enable Caps Lock) to move the screen focus away from your character and towards the area you want to clear.

You may be able to toss a teleporter stone onto/into inaccessible regions and move around by repeatedly tossing one stone and teleporting to it (you are not suppose to be up on most mountains, across the river in the south east corner of the dark forest, etc, and will not be able to walk there). That isn't necessary, though, unless you're obsessive about getting rid of the fog of war.

Raze, thanks for the info. I'll keep your post bookmarked for future use :)

Right now, I'm just going to ditch the game and go onto something better designed -- with the idea to come back to it sometime in the future. Stuff like this detracts from my enjoyment of a game so much, though, and with over 100 games backlogged, I think I'd rather play something else. I just don't understand why a game would be designed like this? I mean, why make a game uglier than you have to?

If you find a weapon with Elven or Ranger Sight on it, you can use that to permanently increase your sight range, as well. Every time you load the game with that weapon equipped, your sight range will PERMANENTLY increase by 1 or 2 depending on which skill is on it. So if you repeatedly quicksave then quickload then quicksave again, you can get a near-infinite sight range. This only works if the skill isn't already maxed.

I discovered this by accident when I suddenly went from having a tiny sight radius to having an enormous one. It's definitely a bug, though. I ended up hex editing the sight range back down to something reasonable and getting rid of the weapon.

EDIT: Once the fog of war is cleared, it stays cleared forever. You'll always be able to see the terrain, but you can only see creatures that are within your sight radius. As you explore it'll go away. I like it, personally, as it helps me keep track of what areas I haven't visited yet. The vision range is pretty tiny in the early game, though.

I found the fog of war handy to help keep track of where I had explored. With my first character (in the disk version) late in the game I started avoiding equipment with higher sight bonuses so my sight range would not get larger than the screen size (playing at 1024x768).

As Bevinator mentioned, you could always edit your character's sight directly. See Some more hex offsets... (and maybe Teleporting Anywhere, via hex editor as a reference).

Alternately, use DAD's item editor to put a large sight bonus on a ring, or something. Late in the game I tested that, and a +1000 sight bonus on a ring cleared much of the fog of war on the map of the final area. Trying to equip a second such ring crashed the game. That was with the disk version, but I assume too high a value would be a problem in the GOG version as well.

If the "fog of War" is a deal breaker for you then you have my condolences because you will be unable to play some great games. The Baldurs Gate series and Icewind Dale series all use the feature. It is not a sign of a "poorly designed" game, your dislike of it is merely the sign of a mind unable to accept something different.

The fog merely tells you were you have and haven't been. It makes for some mystery as you wonder around a land you have never seen before.

I have to imagine there are other more frustrating things in games than the fog.

LOL, you're missing the point entirely.

I've played both Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale and every other game is those series through about three times, both are two of my favorite games of all time. And no, they don't have the 'fog of war' continually on part of your screen no matter that you've already visited the place.

The fog of war is in many games. Used to it. Don't mind it. It's useful.

But....when it's on part of your screen continually, sometimes to a point where you can only see one third or two thirds of a picture, yet you've already BEEN to the places it's still covering - yep, sorry, badly designed and very annoying.

Neither should Divine Divinity. Once the fog of war is cleared it should stay that way.

Is this fog of war cleared and then returning, or does it just not clear?

Have you tried different game resolutions? Some people have reported black bars on screen when playing the game at certain resolutions (depending on their video card and monitor), so if you have consistent black bars, maybe the game just isn't being run full screen.

Nope. Definitely full screen :)

This is what it looks like all the time -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX2PrGh7O14&feature=relmfu (and this guy is HOURS into the game).

Fog of war is fine if it's just out of your line of sight, but right in the middle of your play screen? Like I said, poor design and makes for a very ugly game.

BTW, it's not a game breaker as I may play DD eventually but.....I deleted it from my hard drive right now as, with over 100 better designed games in my backlog to play, it's just not that appealing to me. And yes, graphics are a huge part of gameplaying and I'm always fascinated by people who say they're not. If they werent, they wouldn't have improved so markedly from just 2000 to 2012 as people wouldn't care. Like aesthetics anywhere, people do care and buy and love games because of it.

BTW, I do think this is a guy vs women thing, as I've always noticed in the computer game world, male gamers will mess for hours with problem games just to make them better, whereas women just ditch the game and move on to another as we presume it should have been 'made better' :). I think it's the same difference that makes women spend hours window shopping then not buying anything (which guys don't get) while guys spend days fiddling with games to improve them (which we don't get :)

The video you linked doesn't have any fog of war. The reason it's so dark is because that video takes place at night. At night you've got a limited lighted area due to your character using a torch. Go around during the day and you won't have any issues.

Like Bevinator, I don't see a problem with that video. I skipped over most of him doing voices reading the dialogs inside, then he was outside at night, and towards the end (with the start of dawn) it showed the full screen in areas he had explored already.
He is hours into the game due to completing the catacombs. Given the quest to arrange an escort for the healers, he has been pretty much following the paths to get where he needs to go for that, not exploring and clearing the fog of war (other than along the path).

If you get around to trying the game again, go into your graphics options and increase the gamma setting to brighten the screen (and switch the darkness setting to 50 to increase the light radius around your character). I think that will probably clear up your 'fog of war' issue.

The video you linked to took place at night. No fog of war there. The fog of war in DD works pretty much as it does in Baldurs Gate or the IWD series. Things are dark and you visit them and then they are light. When darkness falls (or dark with rain as in one location) you are limited in your vision. No big deal.

You do know you can check your map to a "lighted" view of areas you have visited?

I can understand the OP. I've never been bothered by Fog of War before either. This game somehow sticks it really close to your face, so to speak. DD seems to be full of both good and bad design.

So it's the limited vision from dark areas (night time, cave/dungeon areas) that's irritating you. That's an atmospheric effect really with a game with day and night effects you have to expect something like that. And being a role playing game if you were really in a pitch back dungeon or in the forest at night, you aren't going to see very far in front of you.

Not to mention other similar games use it as well even say Diablo, DD's may be a bit darker outside your light radius. And there are ways to increase your light range.
Here's Diablo and you can clearly see it's doing something quite similar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fl5I5CUTqh4

I've just finished up the first town and I'm having a lot of fun with my mage. You should get it more time and just get used to that.

JIC anyone has weird glitchy fog of war that looks like bands of black hash browns across parts of your screen, rather than the normal looking fog of war for the game (or any game, really), try out DDrawCompat. The code is available, so if you aren't the trusting kind, you can always build it yourself.

https://github.com/narzoul/DDrawCompat/releases

Yeah, necro and all that, but this was one of the top results I found from Google, so here's hoping perhaps I'll help someone else here, 10 years or more later :)