Telika: Also, I did hear things about Beyond being a bit less good than Divine (more linear or actiony ? plagged by an annoying unavoidable companion ?). Maybe I would have grabbed it if I had been certain it was just more of Divine Divinity, but I heard it drifted towards the less enjoyable. This pushed it a bit on the fence, in the "not immediate" list.
BD is divided into 4 acts, and the first does start out a little linear, with few quests or interaction with friendly NPCs, but opens up a bit towards the end, when you reach an area with some Black Ring soldiers and miscellaneous support personnel (most of whom are friendly if they think you are a soldier). Acts 2 and 3 are quite open, with a central hub for lots of non-combat quests and NPC interactions.
The start of Divine Divinity was fairly linear and heavy on the hack and slash, as well, but at least with the few NPCs and quests in Aleroth you got a better idea at the beginning of what the rest of the game would be like.
If you don't like parties, most of the time you can have both characters selected and direct them to move and attack as one. A non-lead character as an archer set to aggressive (to automatically attack targets in range) requires even less management (I don't know if I'd want an aggressive warrior running off when an opponent comes in range, though). Except for using potions and during tough fights, there usually isn't much need to switch back and forth between characters. If you just find the DK's voice annoying, the voice acting gets better as the game progresses, and he talks less.
I think a lot of the initial complaints about BD were because it was not just more of DD. Some new things they tried worked well (summoning dolls, the extra main stats allowing much more flexibility in character builds) and some did not (several of the skills were more complex than they needed to be).
mrcrispy83: I can't play it on my laptop despite having no trouble with DD. Been a while since I tried playing, but it keeps crashing or freezing during loading or something so I've barely even been able to walk around the first area. :(
A couple people have had performance problems at the very start of the game, due to the steam vents in the in the cell area. If driver updates, or something, since the last time you tried the game don't make a difference, maybe getting out of the first area will help (if your laptop is having a problem with the same thing that caused the performance issues).
Did you check the
Divine Divinity series forum for suggestions, etc?
