I have to say this game is very interesting and out of all action/rpgs out there, it actually has a great story. The music is completely amazing and in some cases i like it just as much as d2's tristram music (which says a lot). I am also very into what they did with the class system which is like arcanum mixed with diablo. All in all, i have high hopes for the game after giving it a second chance.

The survivor class is my favorite as i favor rogues. However, in all my experiences with rpgs-this one fits the rogue class the best. The only thing that amazes me about this game and a few others is why it never got the credit it deserved. I wouldnt play the sequel beyond divinity (because i heard its lame) nor the new game either cause i prefer top down view- but this game just slipped by without me even knowing.

Hi deathknight1728 :)
I am wondering about the survior class - wondering why anyone would pick it.
According to info on how class affects stat points and their effects the only sensible choices seem to be either warrior if going melee, or wizard if going magic. The warrior can do anything a survivor can but also gets a hugh damage bonus per strenght stat point over the survivor. Because of the universal availability of skills to all classes in this game the survivor class is really just a weak warrior and an underpowered wizard. I cannot see any point in playing the survivor class.
But maybe I am mistaken. What do you think?
Has anyone else a view on this?

I understand what you are saying but i am into it for a roleplaying point of view. The survivor does get a few things that the warrior doesnt get and the mage doesnt get either. The warrior is full on fighter, the mage is full on wizard. The survivor can do both, which is diverse. Plus i am always usually into the finesse characters that use finesse and guile. I can never play the brutes and barbarian type characters. Thats just me.

Yes I understand the role-playing aspect; and the survivor does get a slightly better defense boost per agility point than the warrior. Still, because of the universal skill availability one can play a warrior as a 'finesse and guile' character using survivor skills and daggers etc but with the significant warrior damage bonus.
By the way, I'm sure you know, but just in case, I mean no criticism of your choices; this is just an academic point I had been musing about myself and your post prompted me to reply. Maybe I should have statred a separate topic.

The simple answer is because one "wants to".

Your question is posed purely from a power-gaming perspective. You're basically asking, "why hasn't everybody read a spreadsheet that breaks down the specific point values of everything in game and chosen only the most dominant/easy/powerful choices for their character?"

And the answer is because many people don't find that fun. They play games for the adventure of it and if they feel like playing a "sneaky thief guy" they're going to choose survivor. Finding the mathematically "correct" choices to produce the most dominant combat machine based on percentages just never enters the equation.

Why does anybody bother to play a game at all when they could just read a walkthrough in much less time?

I agree with this very much. I always pick the thief character, or the assassin character if thieves aren't available. The idea of something being statistically superior doesn't enter into it, especially not in a single-player game.

One of my favourite genres is the 2D fighting game genre, particularly Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike and Blazblue: Continuum Shift. The more hardcore players, tournament players, get really obsessed with tier lists for the characters. You'll generally see only about 5 or so characters at Street Fighter IV tournaments, despite there being about 35 characters. It's pretty sad, although you can understand why - it's like an arms race where everyone has to have the best weapons - but I can't help but feel it misses out on the spirit of the games quite a lot.

Agreed entirely.

In the SFIV example, it makes sense since these people are playing a tournament. It's a competition, obviously they're going to make the choices that give them the best chance to succeed in the competition.

However, when playing a game casually (especially a single player game) there is no such pressure in these choices. There is no need for all decisions to be "balanced". In fact, it's kind of boring when they are. Nobody said being a wimpy thief instead of a massive tank would be easy, but that's part of the fun.

I think most single player RPGs are like this and it's really an added bonus in my opinion. I don't want all character to builds to be created equal, that makes it boring. There's no harm in one build being more powerful than another...you can look at it as a degree of difficulty. As long as a particular character isn't completely gimped to the point of not being able to complete the game in reasonable fashion (in which case I'd call it broken) then it's all good.

You know, I really wonder why people categorize this game as an action RPG.

DivDiv is certainly not less of an RPG than most other games that bear this monicker. It doesn't have the multiple choices of an Arcanum or Fallout, but OTOH it has a more interactive environment than both of these (and most other RPG's). The storytelling is less text heavy than that of Baldur's Gate or Planescape Torment, however the amount of railroading is also less. You're completely free to explore.

I do agree that it's not accurate to judge DD just off the resemblances to Diablo (though there are many of them). Diablo was more like a roaming beat 'em up (such as Final Fight or Streets of Rage) but just with unlockable skills and editable stats. The story functioned as little more than a justification for you to kill things and you couldn't express yourself within it at all. You just mowed through enemies en route to the next cutscene.

It's just that for all DD's Baldur's Gate style additions, the control style and nature of the moves is all based around combat - there's the odd skill like lockpicking, but 99% of the skills are to do with dealing damage to an enemy. So it's definitely more a case of Diablo with some Baldur's Gate trimmings than it is of Baldur's Gate but with the Diablo fighting system.

In Baldur's Gate you could spend literally hours just wandering around, doing quests, talking to people, sorting out disputes and so on but in DD you can't go long without cracking open an orc skull or splintering a skeleton to pieces. The incentive to keep on going also seems much more Diablo-like in its random drops and incremental boosts to stats and skills, rather than like in Torment, Baldur's Gate or Fallout where it's more about what happens next in the story.

DD is definitely an action RPG. You cant get very far without combat. Unless you teleport or have already cleared out an area you have to fight your way through everywhere. Not that I'm complaining; it has lots of interactivity and a good story too. Two worlds is the same; constant combat; but it has good interactivity and story also; the epic version is quite alright IMO.
Both games differ significantly from Diablo2, from what I have seen of that game. I tried playing Diablo2 a few times but was always bored by it. I couldn't find any point to what I was doing in the game except beat-up, gather-up and level-up. maybe I didnt give it enough time? But the world seemed to be merely a killing field.

I just got the game to work. I think that the game wasnt installed with administrative properties. Thank god. I actually like the fact that its action mixed with a bit of story. D2, as you were saying is good but has no story, like wow. Im gonna play it slowly so i enjoy it while i get my gladiator/demonologist in dins curse to lvl 100. Such a great class system. Sure the game's graphics suck, but graphics dont matter nearly as much as gameplay.

The problem with the WoW story, like that in any MMO, is that you can never actually affect the world you're in, outside of killing generic, infinitely respawning enemies. The world is permanently stuck in some sort of status quo stasis until Blizzard release an expansion, but then that's nothing to do with your actions in the world. So the world of Azeroth (?) is the same as it always is, you don't overthrow that bad guy, liberate that town, assassinate that sorcerer, re-open the supply route etc. Even if you do, it resets immediately for next time you want to do it.

Not to mention, the fact everyone else is human actually detracts from the story for me. Not only does it mean that most people walking around have done the exact same supposedly unique "plot" actions, as if everyone in Midgar is actually Cloud Strife, there's also a that it's not your character and that stoic dwarf that kill the dragon, it's you and a man from New York. Kind of breaks the illusion, basically. So in that sense, it suffer from the same Diablo thing; the plot is nothing more than flavour to try and distract you from the fact that the whole world is just a killing field - the term that siddham used for Diablo.

(Incidentally, Diablo is pretty much a single player WoW. Or, alternatively, they're both like playing Warcraft but you can only control a hero unit - and he has a lot more possible skills.)

It gets worse though. Both d2 and wow have one thing that makes them worthless as games-the people on there. The people that play wow and d2 in bnet, for some reason are the biggest bunch of assholes on the server. When i used to play d2 and wow, I play with sociopaths, pedophiles, losers, perverts, and all other scum in society. It makes me sick that blizzard doesnt moniter them. There have been numerous times where i have been duped, there are bots, ads, sociopaths, all because blizzard cant take care of these losers. My first time on bnet in wow, people banned me from the game because i didnt know a button and i asked them. Most of the people on bnet are not people, imho. Its too bad frank castle's not around, if he was he'd never be out of a job, heh.

Hi deathknight1728
It is a shame about the people who play those competitive online games. I played WoW a bit and encountered all kinds of obnoxious idiots (and a few good heads too) but I kept to myself generally and never got very far into it; nor any good at it. Tried Guild Wars too, which I rate highly, but again the level of skill required to be good at it was beyond me; and the serious players are not patient.
One of the aspects about the internet that has been most instructive for me over the years has been contact with and exposure to kinds of human minds that I would never encounter in my daily world. I am amazed at the variety; and at the the appalling almost demonic level of some minds I have encountered. Has been an eye-opener.

I was rebuked above for being a power-gamer because I made some remarks about the class and skill system in Divine Divinity - but I'm not at all. I wouldn't last a moment in online D2 or any PvP not to mention a WoW raiding party - they would quickly boot me out. I play for fun. Knowing something about a games mechanics is part of the fun for me. I like reading FAQs and guides and lore and the like.

What's this Din's Curse? First I heard of it. Any good?

This thread was an interesting reading. I haven't played the game yet myself but I'm looking forward to it later. Right now it is Might and Magic VI that is getting my time. My playstyle is a mix between deathknight1728's roleplaying style and the powergaming style when playing RPG's or immersive strategy games.

This is because I both like the strategic aspect of these games and figuring out and using the game mechanics to my advantage (not the exploits). But I also like to imagine that the gameworld is a real one. I've mainly been doing this with Civilization III, Age of Wonders and some other strategy game but lately I've began experimenting with RPG's also.

When I'm doing this and not just playing the game to win I find myself mostly making choices based on game logic and afterward making up reasons for what has happened. So it is not true roleplaying, perhaps later I will try to make the choices mostly out of what makes sense for my character (or nation, people) to do. Fallout would be a good choice for this as it is quite easy and very open-ended.

I have a couple of recommendations for those that would like to enhance their computer roleplaying experience. One is making a diary for your characters, if you are playing a RPG.

Another is to make up some additional rules for things that happen in the gameworld that is not featured in the game. If you have some dice that can display numbers up to 12 or 20 (can be bought separately in stores that sell roleplaying gear) you can throw those to decide when certain things happen or the properties of objects\creatures. This way both the game, your imagination and the random outcomes of the dice can be mixed together into an interesting story. You can of course also use a normal six-sided dice and throw it two times after one another for 36 different outcomes, or throw it trice for 216 different outcomes! Example: 3-6-5
or 5-6-3.