Special Feature - 6th of April What's in a quest ?

To give you an idea of the character interaction, this special feature will highlight a few parts of a minor subquest. There’s some spoiler information here, so if you want to discover for yourself how things work in Divine Divinity, don’t continue reading. All of you who’ve played a role-playing game are familiar with the standard retrieve item-receive reward type of quest. There’s nothing wrong with those, and as a matter of fact, they are very useful for introducing a player into a universe. Unfortunately, typically those quests are implemented as “Hi how are you – if you get me this sword, I’ll give you 500 coins”, and that’s it. We’ve tried to handle things a bit different in Divine Divinity, as this special feature demonstrates. Click on a screenshot for an enlarged version.

In this first screenshot, you see yourself (the player) standing near an ordinary house. Inside lives George, the merchant who resides in the small healer community of Aleroth. Something’s wrong with George, but we’re not going to tell you what (as that might ruin your fun when you play the game). As you approach George’s shop, the camera moves to the inside of the house, and shows you a dialogue between George and Tutamun, somebody you haven’t met yet. They seem to be having an argument as can be seen in screenshot 2. After the argument is over, Tutamun angrily leaves the shop and strolls off. When you enter, George who was thinking about what just happened, quickly walks behind his counter, and addresses you, his new customer. You can ask George about the argument you just witnessed, but he’s not very eager to talk about it. However, you could help him out by bringing him some Drudanae, as can be seen in screenshot 3.

You of course don’t have a clue what Drudanae is, so George tells you that he will show you. Apparently he still has some in his back room. The camera focuses on George who opens the door to the backroom as he moves towards the Drudanae. This can be seen in screenshot 4. As you enter the room, George tells you, “this is what it looks like” and in one breath adds that you shouldn’t touch it. Of course you touch it, and George mutters that you have to put it back. This is shown in screenshot 5. A word of advise : Don’t try stealing it from him. How Divine Divinity handles theft is something for a next special feature, but George is really sensitive about his Drudanae.

George wants you to take some Drudanae from Lanilor’s garden. Lanilor is a healer elf who also lives in Aleroth. After finding Lanilor’s house, and more importantly, his garden, you spot the Drudanae, as you can see in screenshot 6. You pick up the herb and put it in your backpack, already thinking of the experience points you’re going to get. When you leave the garden however, a dwarf, who happens to stroll by, notices that you have the Drudaneu with you and addresses you about it. This is visible in screenshot 7.

The rest of the story we’re going to keep a secret, but we hope this example makes it clear that even the simple “get me the item – I’ll give you a reward” types of quests in Divine Divinity are a bit more fleshed out than what you are used to.