Sven is there for the first hour. Talks about a lot of things. Release is 10am pacific time on Aug 3rd (so around 6-7pm for UK/EU) (3 day head start is cancelled in case anyone missed that). They wanted to do it earlier (their time), but Steam wanted it early on steam time so they could be sure to cover support.
EDIT: Finished watching it. Recap
- Game is basically done. Locked final build yesterday review copies going out soon.
- They had planned stat rolls (like in the old ones), but was cut.
- Game features so many new things compared to the current version that it will be a "new" download. It's "very large". (EA is 80gigs, so wouldn't be surprised if it's 100+.)
- Class / Race will impact story, but some to a bigger degree than others due to entire areas dedicated to them. Like Druid, Drow and such.
- (coop) Party members can listen in on all conversations, but will be "pulled in" for critical ones. Person who initiates will decide and roll.
- Steam deck support later (new build released yesterday, it will be there at one point, but might not be at launch)
- They planned to have "danger zones" where camping was limited/denied (as the older games had), so had to focus on resource management. The testers hated it. Since the combat is so involved they had to travel out of the "zones" to camp then go back. It wasn't fun, so they scrapped most of them.
- Camp/dialogue system is made in a way that you can never see everything. Example he used was if you talk to Laezel in camp, then to Shadowheart, she will ask you what you were talking about with options to answer. Talk to Shadowheart first, that will not happen. But he said they have put in place securities that you will never miss important/critical scenes.
- Also mentioned the secret Sven has. Years ago he was in an interview saying he had a secret that he couldn't talk about. Cohh then asks if it was the Dark Urge. Sven "No, it was bear sex".
--- it was the Dark urge, idea he had for a long time. He says it's not something he recommend for a first run. Reason is that if you play it first, you get lots of events, and when you play the dark urge, you get "oh shit" moments because you see how differently you can impact those events. If you play it the first run, you won't get that sensation, because you kind of need to know what's different to get the effect of the changes)
- Kind of major info (especially compared to DOS2). In DOS2, if you played a custom character, you missed out on a bunch of story and events. In this game Sven says he always picks a custom character at start. He recommends origin characters for secondary playthroughs. Said there is nothing "wrong" with picking an origin character, but he likes discovering their story as an unknown, then when you pick them, you get "their" versions of events, because you're in their head. What they think the first time they meet characters, what they naturally would do in events and so on. But (thankfully) it doesn't seem like a DOS2 situation where you got "less game" from picking custom (I always recommend using the 6 player mod in DOS2 and going tactician to make up for the extra power. That way, you get all character stories in one run.)
- You can respec origin characters as well, but they will always "be" their origin in terms of their story.
- And finally, I know many on these forums don't like CohhCarnage. They announced now that he is a character. A revamp of Noober. Dev said, if you find him annoying, you can push him in a river, among other things.
