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From what I can guess, Larian wanted to have the PC either male or female dependent on the player's choice but this meant double the amount of lines, scenarios etc meaning a lot more work. To cut development time they had to choose and decided on the PC being male however they have listened to feedback and will try and include a female character if possible.

The game has to be made in a reasonable amount of time so they can move on to other projects rather than spending years on one title. Lots of things get cut from games to meet targets and I'm assuming in Dragon Commander's case it was the choice of being a female player. Maybe when they drew up the game design docs it became apparent that having both would be just too much time and money. They are mainly self funded so whilst the game is in development they are not getting paid. Larian is a business after all and businesses need to make money to stay in business. Larian do care about their fans and games unlike the larger developers so wait and see they might fit it in if time permits.

I don't think DC will take as long as Divinity 3 to make and they seem to have a fair bit of DC done already so if, say it's for a summer 2012 release it's not really that long before we will see it completed. Their big title will be Divinity 3 which I'm almost certain will be based around a new character of which you can be male or female.


Last edited by Arokh; 19/09/11 08:46 PM.

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Ego Draconis was pushed out the door unfinished because Larian ran out of money (and possibly also time). And they still managed to include a female PC from the get-go.

In D2:ED and DKS there are almost no differences between male and female characters (other than the cosmetic character model and voice), and only one quest (in FoV) depends on your gender.

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Yeah I know they care about there fans, but I would rather them try for late next year & add the option of a female character, Even if it means D3 comes first.

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That decision might depend on Larian's financial status and / or pressure from 'interested parties' as I think it was mentioned in one of the updates. They may be able to do what they want but any developer must set themselves timescales and deadlines otherwise it can drag on forever. Duke Nukem forever is one example, not quite the same thing but that dragged on so long that the end result was a disaster.

Last edited by Arokh; 19/09/11 08:55 PM.

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yeah I suppose but it would still be nice to have the option in the game though

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I don't care too much about male or female pc . If all other gameplay elements are nice worked out, I'm very happy with DC ! But to be honest : I hope for both genders in 1 game to play with (if possible to make it in a acceptable period of developing time). wink

My most wanted thing to see and expertise, buying Ego Draconis, was :
the "Mindreading feature" ! When I first heard of it, it holds my attention until the day of relaese !
Hope Larian find & use their creative innovative mind (I know they have!) to add such a brand new unseen feature like Mindreading in DS or Divinity III ! Then I buy it immediately at day of release !!

And of course I was curious for the shapeshifting into a dragon, but I didn't expected too much of that and so I wasn't disappointed, on the contrary !! smile


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Originally Posted by Arokh
That decision might depend on Larian's financial status and / or pressure from 'interested parties' as I think it was mentioned in one of the updates.


You mean the 'interested parties' Larian explicitly turned down when they offered to invest in Dragon Commander because they didn't want publishers interfering with their vision?

Originally Posted by Lar_q
We even got our first offer for a worldwide publishing deal, which we, shockingly, respectfully declined, at least for the time being. The reason– being madly in love with Dragon Commander and not wanting to lose creative control, something that automatically happens when signing one of those deals (For the understandable reason that people do get very nervous once they committed millions to something so they want to have a say)


Or perhaps you meant one of the smaller players in the industry. The ones that were mentioned as still being idealistic enough and enthusiastic enough to want to see Dragon Commander become great as well. I'd think those companies would only start pressuring if Larian really screws up.

Even so... perhaps Larian's financial status will eventually force them to scrap something as basic as the option to play as a man, but I don't think they're worrying too much about getting pressured by outsiders.

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Originally Posted by WotanAnubis
Ego Draconis was pushed out the door unfinished because Larian ran out of money (and possibly also time).


They were ? This is new to me.


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Originally Posted by AlrikFassbauer
Originally Posted by WotanAnubis
Ego Draconis was pushed out the door unfinished because Larian ran out of money (and possibly also time).


They were ? This is new to me.


FoV was originaly supposed to be part of Ego Draconis.

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I never edperienced it as such. For me it was a separate thing right from the beginning.

But maybe I'm mixing things now ? Only one from the team can sort this out.


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Originally Posted by AlrikFassbauer
Originally Posted by WotanAnubis
Ego Draconis was pushed out the door unfinished because Larian ran out of money (and possibly also time).


They were ? This is new to me.

I read it on the Internet once so it must be true. Sadly, I can't find the source any more (though I suppose I could if I spent far too much time digging), so I won't blame if you take all of this with a grain of salt or just disbelieve me outright.

The story went roughly like this: At some point during the development of Ego Draconis, Larian simply ran out of money and they were forced to push the game out unfinished. While the future of the game (and possibly Larian itself, but I don't know about that) was up in the air, unofficial work was already starting to patch Ego Draconis a lot without knowing it would ever actually happen. Fortunately, Ego Draconis sold surprisingly well, and Larian got the money they needed to fix up the game and give it a proper ending. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately from a different point of view), Ego Draconis' problems apparently couldn't be completely fixed by just patching it so we got the Dragon Knight Saga instead, which overhauled a lot of the basics and gave us the expansion.

(And good thing too. Ego Draconis was so frustrating, the only reason I powered through it was because I liked the world (especially, yes, Sentinal Island and the Battle Tower), the whole turning-into-a-dragon thing and just the concept of Dragon Slayer-turned-Dragon Knight. The Dragon Knight Saga is a lot less frustrating and so a lot more fun.)

But anyways, like I said, I read it on the Internet and I sadly can't find the source again. So I can't say for certain if this true. But considering the state of Ego Draconis and the fact of the existence of the Dragon Knight Saga, I'd lay odds in favour of there being a kernel of truth in there.

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I do know that Divinity 1 was published "unfinished" ... well, not exactly, but the end section of the game was rather ... done in a hurried way, so to say.



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FoV was originaly supposed to be part of Ego Draconis.

No, it wasn't. Lar said at one point there were a couple things that were originally intended to be part of D2:ED that got moved to FoV.

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Originally Posted by Raze

FoV was originaly supposed to be part of Ego Draconis.

No, it wasn't. Lar said at one point there were a couple things that were originally intended to be part of D2:ED that got moved to FoV.

Quite so.

We originally planned to have more of Aleroth in Ego Draconis, but time ran out. Then, when designing Flames of Vengeance, we used the entire city, added a whole new plot line and revamped all the previously designed quests (basically started from scratch actually).


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& I'm glad you guy's & Gal's did because DKS is amazing grin

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It's true that Aleroth was meant to be in the original. If you jump over the barrier when you enter Aleroth, you can explore the city and most of it is intact. Some placeables and textures however are missing. To jump over the barrier, you'll need to jump up upon the flame holder that is near the barrier under the tunnel (the tunnel leading to the lift). From the flame holder, you can jump over the barrier where the soldiers are fighting the undead.

It's interesting to note that talking to one of the soldiers makes you go through the dialogue with Commander Rhode again and several of the soldiers are called "Man" which is quite funny.

So I guess this supports what Macbeth was saying about the time running out.

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Well, the question is, whether they wanted Aleroth to be in the game in the same way it is presented with the Add-On - or whether they wanted just to have "more" Aleroth to be within the game - in the same setting like during the main game. The Add-On shows Aleroth a relatively peace, and this is unlike in the main game, as far as I have understood it.

I think there's more to the small word of "more".


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It would have been cool if you could have joined in the battle in Aleroth during ED.

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