As a followup to a previous interview, Swen Vincke and Dirk De Boeck of Larian Studios answered a few more questions concerning their PC RPG, Divine Divinity.

In response to a question concerning Divine Divinity's story and its influences, Vincke and De Boeck said that the story was heavily influenced by the writing and imagery styles of novel writers J.R.R. Tolkien, Raymond E. Feist, and Robin Hobb. Without spoiling too much, the introductory story is split into two events which alternate to form the basic premise of the story. One event shows a cult summoning a divine being, then promptly attempting to slay her. The second event shows the hero fighting against a small horde of orcs; he manages to kill one and then decides to run, however he is shot with an arrow from an orc archer. The camera switches back to the cult event. This time, the cult has been successful in hiting the being with a ceremonial sword, but the being splits into three parts and disappears. The hero is shown again and is about to be killed by a orc but then there is a cataclysmic storm and an earthquake; a lighting bolt comes down and hits the hero, chasing the orcs away but leaving the hero unconscious. After a period of time, the hero gains partial consciousness and sees a cat sniffing him, but he moves slightly and the cat runs away but the hero falls unconscious again. The last scene shown is the hero waking up in the village of Aleroth and a man named Joram wishing to speak to him.

In response to a question about Divine Divinity's interface and controls, Vincke and De Boeck said that the interface should feel intuitive and similar to Diablo. They however noted that what will make Divine Divinity different from Diablo is that you can interact with the world more. For example, you can extract poison from a plant and then apply the poison on a weapon. They also added that their testers have been able to figure out the controls with little difficulty.

In reponse about how the detailed animation for the game's Player Characters, Vincke and De Boeck said that it took their artist, Kurt, two years just to finish the 160000 frames of animation for each of the six Player Characters. The main reason for this however was that each piece of equipment the character(s) pick up, it changes his/her appearance. Candidly, it was noted that their artist is now rather sensitive to the words Player Character.

Divine Divinity will be shown at the Electronic Consumer Trade Show(ECTS) this year. It is being published by CDV Software Entertainment AG, and is being developed by Larian Studios. The game's official website is www.divinedivinity.com. There will also be a playable demo to be released soon.