Hello, everyone,

this game is currently being discussed at RPGWatch as well ... As some of you already might know.

One other point of discussion(s) is the art style. And, to be more exact, the colouring.

As an example ( ! ) of the current discussion I quote 2 posts here :


First, user "coyote" :




Second, user GhanBuriGhan, his direct reply to the above :



Me, I'm indeed totally biased. To be frank, I must say that I'm beginning to be fed up with ll of this "Dark Fantasy" art style I see in games recently. I even call it "Heavy Metal Fantasy" right now, or just "Dark Fantasy".

Sign are "mature themes" (against which I have nothing becaue I believe that "mature themes" can be presented in a rather bright-looking environment, too, but nobody does it yet, except perhaps Manga, for example), and a generally dark, gritty, dirty and bloody look in the art directions.

Which is why several people have expressed their distaste of the curent DivO colourfulness. They call it often "too WOWish" and similar things. I assume you get what I mean.

My reply on all of that (totally biased, too) can be read here : http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1061146896&postcount=155

To cut it short, I see general arts & graphics styles of Fantasy games at a kind of crossroads : One way leads into colourfulness, the other into darkness, so to say.

And biased as I am, I see the road into Darkness already being taken.

So, I just wanted to inform you at Larian of this ongoing discussion - because i believe it is not unimportant.

Ideal would be 2 sets of graphics & textures - a thing which was already done for Gothic : Arcania, but which would also mean *lots* of more work ...


- And - totally apart from that above mentioned discussion - as a side note an idea I once had about the companion's AI of the second character from DivO :




Alrik

A saturation slider, or something, in the graphics options could allow a reasonable amount of adjustment without having to create an extra set of textures.

Personally I don't have a strong preference between light or dark graphics. In general, variety is good, and extremes not so much (too light might not fit the subject matter, while too dark could make everything look the same).

To be honest:
I love colours, dark and/or light .... but I prefer the more colourful ones. Skyrim is a little bit too grey, but thanks to some funny roleplay features I like to play one time this game further on.

Kingdoms of Amalur Reckning is very cartoon style and very colourful and I like it to play such a game because the dungeons are colourful, but with more dark colours, it's nnice done immo ! So I not sell away this rpg.

DD is in fact more dark than light, but DD is really so big fun to play that to dark or to light graphics do NOT irritate me 1 second !!

DKS hase more light colours than DD and I love to play DKS !!

Risen, Dark Souls and more : I don't like the more realistic and darker graphics, but that's me

I like detailed objects like in DD with small or bigger objects like an orange, apple, chicken meat, fork, knife, a chair, barrels, chests, rocks, etc etc ... but DD is still a fantasy RPG !! I've the feeling Divnity Original Sin is going that way, but even with more technical advantage because, of course, it's currently 10 years after the release of DD !

For me the most important things with the colours of a game are that they're not too dark or too bright so it do not start after a very short time as
"a painful-play-for-my-eyes!!"

It can be a nice idea to give the player the option to set the atmosphere more dark or more light.

Aside from this feature Gothic: Arcania give us it's a too casual rpg immo and not worth to spend my gaming time on such a rpg, so I sell it recently away, together with other games !

I'm bringing my response to you from the "Wishlist" thread posts.



Here I was saying that I think the first three Divinity games should set the precedent. I liked their colors and the art direction. And I also saw a lot of beauty, especially in Divinity 2. Grass in those games looks about right to me. It may or may not be the same color as when I look outside (certainly there are no mushroom forests from Beyond Divinity ).

I don't have an opinion on what is "overused" or what "trends" there are because I play a very limited amount of games.

But I will say again, that I think colors and brightness are secondary to what really makes it look like a cartoon, and that is the art style itself. Even dark, gloomy dungeon games like Diablo 3 and Torchlight have a cartoon look that comes from the style, not the colors. The Sacred games had tons more brightness and light themes and even silliness, and they look ten times better than D3 or Torchlight. Same goes for Drakensang.

Monsters Inc., Toy Story and Shrek would still be cute movies even if they were in black-and-white. And the graphics of Divinity: Original Sin looks cute, regardless of brightness and colors.

I'm with Raze on this one.

I don't care if a game is 'Dark' or 'Light' or somewhere between as long as the game play is good and it doesn't look like an Anime.

Some of my favourite games look like actual cartoons (Broken Sword 1 & 2, for the curious) but the art style fits with the games.

Just give me an interesting plot, solid characterisation and good game play and I'm happy

You can't change art-style and/or design with a slider. For example, WoW style is quite distinguishable, and sometimes this unique aspect of it being used for comparison, to describe other media: recently dead Copernicus has quite similar "style" to WoW, so is latest trailer for the "Guardian of Middle Earth".

As for simple saturation changes- you can use PowerStrip's personal profile for your DivinityOriginalSin.exe.

I`m with Raze and Elliot on this one. It's more the total package, a game isnt defined only by it's cartoony or dark graphics. If I just get the feeling that the entire game fits nicely together, I'm happy. Cartoons doesnt mean that more adult themes cant be handled, just look at Pixar's Up and Wall-e.

I just wanna give the developers creative freedom, so I get surprised with the things they come up with. As long as you dont make it teal and orange like hollywood movies do too often.

I didn't find Shrek "cute". I found it rather ... Well, okay, from the art style it is "cute", I must admit - but from its theme is is partly not ...

I haven't seen the other movies you mentiones yet.

It occurs to me I've sounded rather negative about this game so far (wah, I don't like turned based, what happened to the art design?), but really, I am psyched about Divinity: Original Sin.

What I haven't said yet is so obvious to me that I almost forget it needs stating: I have NO DOUBT Larian will deliver an awesome game with great characters, story, dialogue and a world to explore. I have loved all three Divinity games so far. I would preorder today (once I was sure about DRM).

That being said, this is the thread to talk about light/dark, so I went ahead and gave my opinion. The total package is definitely what I'm interested in as well, but that doesn't mean we can't talk about the pieces that make up the whole, right?

Honestly, I don't care. Larian, do as you want.

I think U7 somber graphics were an essential part of the 'vibe' it gave (along with other things, of course ), so I hoped for somehing less colorful and vibrant.
But as others have said what matters is the game as a whole, I'm sure it will be good (played and enjoyed both Div1 & 2, but it was Ultima that brought me here )

Definitely. I figure this is the best place to get my POV across to Larian, and I'll tell them frankly what I like and what I don't. Sometimes that's going to be positive, other times negative.

But - and I think this is true for everyone here! - if I didn't rate them as a company, I wouldn't be on this site at all.

It is not just you, if you haven't noticed yet. That's totally fine. Other people, actually, were expressing their opinion more... expressive, haha.

I'm not really fond of the battlesystem as well, but the art-style and design does not bother me much.

If this game is a near perfect remake of what made Divine Div one of the best games of all time, I'll bite! I finished DD about a month back, and I'm replaying it again, damn it's better than most games out these days, yep amazing game! Its hard to explain why DD is my fav, so note to Lar: remember what made DD so much fun? Well bring that fun to Original Sin

On-topic
Art style is just what you see and as long as it doesn't bother your eyes from playing too much, I'm fine with a DD recreation! Woooohooooo I'm super pumped, I loved the pics on the website, just needs all that extra polish.

Oh how I've missed roaming these forums ^^ something to look out for again in RPG land

all my drooling aside,

except TB (of which larian is already good on its way convincing that it CAN be implemented properly) the coulours are my only other "worry"..

The art style is quite alright, and it's not even the colours that bother me (although i'll see if i can find one of the posts on the forum from the guy who used the DD colours on a screenie from D:OS -> <3 awesome) it's more that excessive glow I see everywhere..In GW (if anybody played that, those are colours I like A LOT and they are vibrant) you get this result when you max all settings, but if you just put one slider back you lose the glow but keep the vibrant colours..That's maybe an idea?
anyway, Swen said that the E3 demo will be already diff from this since they have not yet decided on lighting



eather way I am very excited I've been crunching all news and topics about this since the day the news came out ^^

I hope the artstyle is more realistic and dark. From what we've seen right now the game is rather similar looking to Diablo 3 and Torchlight 2 and the million other loot RPG's. I would prefer it if Original Sin had a more unique artstyle.

Look at Baldur's Gate and Divine Divinity. They're not just memorable due to the great gameplay, story and role playing. They are also memorable due to their artstyles. I'm playing through Baldur's Gate again right now and asides from spells and water looking rather old everything else looks rather decent and the game is easy on my eyes. I'd even go as far to say that Baldur's Gate 1 has better graphics than Divinity 2, Oblivion and Fallout 3 but then again, all of those three titles used that HORRIBLE Gamebyro engine which sucks concerning texture.

Judging from the cam record of E3 presentation, overall style hasn't changed much. I, personally, totally ok with that (never had any issues witht hat in a first place), plus, it is totally understandable, the concept for the game already laid down and now it is being developed already. Not so easy to do such cardinal changes on this stage.

it can be wishfull thinking but i had the impression they dialed the mystic wonder faery land lighting back a notch..am i wrong?

I'm guessing that Larian spent the days leading up to E3 making sure the game worked and not so much on appeasing a handful of art complaints from people who will be buying the game anyway.

Actually, just in continuing to develop the game they did get to some graphics stuff between when the first set of released screenshots were created and E3.

From comments in the blog post Divinity – Original Sin revealed !