But that's just the personal meaning and/or preferences of the maker of that guide !
In my opion their are NO skills a player must skipp BECAUSE of that SUBJECTIVE meaning !!

Then the character should get an reward for that, too.

In what respect should this be "unfair"? No Divinity game has ever had a PvP mode, and neither will D:OS have one, as far as I know. There's absolutely no need for characters to be (roughly) equally powerful, regardless of which skills they've learned.

In all of the previous Divinity games, the weakest characters were created by newbies who accidentally spent their points on low levels of the weakest skills from all trees. If anyone, it should be those characters who are getting a boost.

The classless system encourages playing unique characters and experimenting with unusual combinations. If choosing skills from different trees automatically meant that you'd miss out on "a very good and unique skill", many people would probably stick to the role models like in most other RPGs where you don't have this choice. Larian would be encouraging players not to use the freedom in skilling that has been an important feature of all Divinity games.

Let everyone choose the skills they want, whether these are the most powerful ones from each tree or the most powerful ones from one tree or the ones that suit best to the character the player has in mind. If specialization gets a unique reward, versatility should also get one.

TBH I find Estrogen's idea intriguing when applied to the divinity series. I'm imagining the DKS saga with a skill that will be available for warrior/priest/mage/ranger class whenever you have a given number of skills of certain levels in their tree. (e.g. 5 level 15 skills on the ranger tree unlocks an ultimate ranger ability etc.) It would be very interesting whenever you respec.

We can perceive it a glass half full or half empty. If the game was designed without heavy reliance on these overpowered, class specific/unique skill then everyone will still be happy and it becomes just a "bonus". However we can also see it as a limiting aspect that might discourage players from cross classing.

Also, there is something dangerous with the idea. If a developer does this on the per level basis then that would be very bad (like, the next skill requires x levels of previous skill). I wouldn't like that of course.

Well, the usual layout is that if you follow a certain skill tree, then you will get some sort of bonus. Almost every game has that, nowadays, even King's Bounty.

The underlying philosophy is that people should get rewarded if they manage to specialize. And stick to their once chosen path, no matter what. Flexibility, however, is not rewarded. The common view on that is that "anyone can do that" - and thus "Jack-of-all-trades" are always regarded inferior to specialists. Just look at (A)D&D games. I currently perceive it with DDO. Build Masters frown upon Multiclassing, "except when you really know what you do". Plus, Multiclassing in DDO doesn't get a a certain feat called in community a "capstone". Even worse, the game apparingly seems to be built so that non-specialists have a very, very, if not impossible time in what they call "end game", at least everyone there says so.

Is this a mirror of real life ? especially of the "nerd" cliché ? That specialists (and sometimes even *extreme* specialists ! are rewarded, and flexible ones not ? Who needs a flexible person in Nerd Life anyway ? You don't need to learn cooking, for example. There are Pizza delivery services.

Argh. But I disgress - in the end it's the Larian team's decision anyway.

*Barrel rolls into thread*

The dragon tower in Ego Draconis was cool. Will there be anything like buying property or even castles? I believe Neverwinter Nights did this expertly and I would like to see this in other games (possibly this one?)

Then again, I guess I could just buy Dragon Commander for that lol...

Come to think of it. I didn't REALLY like Neverwinter Nights but somehow I always started a new game just to get to the point for me to run the castle...Commanding your peasants, soldiers and whatnot.

Yes I am.

And angry, too.

And no doubt.

I still love ya.

I dont know about the bonusses. The hidden "danger" is that being diverse and just trying/taking skills that you like etc, is being punished. Since you don't get any bonuses that way and thus its not worthwhile to be a jack of all trades.

Being diverse is probably already a bit punished trough gear. A pure warrior can go for strength+vitality and the heaviest of armors. A mage is going for intelligence and stuff. But a jack of all trades also needs to have all kind of stats.

And there are only a limited amount of skillpoints one gets, thus choices have to be made. Yes a battlemage is a bit of a warrior and a bit mage. But only a few specific mageskills etc.

As there probably is Food and Drinks in again, is there any Reaction planned on being drunk because of some heavy booze? I always wondered that the characters can drink wine, beer, and such stuff, and never seem suffer from ebriety. No fumbling, no staggering around, slurred speech, no hangover, no hiccup, and so on. There might be some level of intoxication that the char can handle, but has to be careful when getting over it. While it might endear you to the bartender, it doesn't improve your relations to the officer round the corner.
Probably a bit hard to get that into a good balance as not to be too annoying for the player...

Good idea.

All of the Divinity games had random loot, which is generally fine as it can add replay value. Divinity 2 introduced the concept of being able to choose certain quest rewards, which is a good idea. I suggest to expand this concept onto a skill that allows you to choose between different possible contents of barrels, chests and the like.

Random loot can often be useless for a specific character, e.g. when an archer finds lots of close-combat weapons or when a physically weak character gets many things with strength requirements. You can circumvent this by saving the game before you open containers (and reloading if you don't like what you find). Many players actually do this.

I'd like to have a skill that can magically adapt the random items in containers to the character's liking by offering more than one selection. The skill could be called the "Grasp of Fate" or "Adventurer's Luck" and leveling it could both provide more precise information on the objects and increase the number of options to choose from.

For example, at level 1 you would only get two options to choose from, and the game would only give you very general information about them, like how much gold, how many potions and how many other objects there are. At level 3, you could pick one of three selections, and the game would display the rarity and type of items, but not the effects they have. At level 5, you'd get four options to choose from and you could see which items exactly there are.

Technically, this would be a bit different from the choice of quest rewards, as you couldn't select single items, but the game would determine two to four full sets of random loot, and you could pick one such set.

Of course, the save-and-reload method would still be possible (and yield similar results if you don't want to spend skill points), but using the skill would be more convenient. And in comparison to someone who never saves and relaods before opening containers, it would allow you to get some random loot that better suits your character and playing style (or is just a bit more valuable, if none of the options contains anything that is actually useful to you). That's why I think it should cost skill points.

Our party members have dialogue with each other, and what I'd like to see is them having different expressions. If they're happy or joking, their character portrait in the dialogue should be smiling. If they're angry, the portrait should look angry.

I don't mind being restricted to a fixed character appearance in any case, but seeing actual emotions on the portraits faces would be great.

I admit that this is partly because I'll probably make a Let's Play sooner or later, and having different portraits would really help with that.

Didn't they mention in interview the ability to bake bread and invent your own weapon? Someone already suggested the ability to deconstruct weapon to simple pieces and use them to build new one (a-la Vagrant Story).

I do support this one. A lot.

To create a fearsome fourhanded sword? Together they can wield it

I'm not sure if you can actually create weapons. You CAN enhance them however you please though.

I loved random loot system in Divine Divinity and I would love to see it's improved version in Original Sin [mainly because it extends video game shelf life].

I like this idea of Lurker !! Good idea !!

I was first worried about the fact that Larian change to make a tactical RPG, but finally that could be à wonderful game (as the previous divinity). My only concern is about the skills and the evolution of the characters, the devlopers seems to give a great importance to magic in the next divinity and I think that one of the key point of divinity sucess is that you can build your character the way you want : if you want to create a ranger with only archery skills you can, if you want to create a warrior with spells you can, and both can be balanced. the non-fighting skills (for example the one that reduce the cost when you read someone thought in divinity 2 or hooking) are also interesting to progress in the adventure.

I would also like a scenarion as interesting and with all the divinity's humour.
I have great hope in the game editor too (I posted on the topic dealing with that)
Finally, I hope that we will have a good collector version !! the divinity 2 collector version was wonderful (even if the french one did not include the figure), the cloth map is a very fun goodie and the cd with divinity 2 OST is wonderful. So I hope that we will have such a good collector edition with divinity original sin (good luck to find a goodie as fun as the cloth map^^, may be a rivellon coin?...)

EDIT : I forgot something that I would like to see in divinity original sin (but il is impossible because it takes place before divine divinity) it is the crusade of the draconis order. I am very fascinated about this

Will Original Sin have an auto-mapping feature? In my eyes, exploring is much more fun when you can't see the whole map from the beginning. And after you haven't been able to play for a few days, it's much easier to continue exploring if only the map areas you've visited are revealed (whereas the rest of the map is black).

In-game maps should help with finding your way, but they shouldn't provide too much information too soon. If there are multi-level areas, like caves with an upper and a lower level, I'd like to suggest that the game provides separate maps for each level.

Unfortunately, the mini-map in was of so little use to me that I hardly ever looked at it. I liked the way handled mapping much better.