Dungeon Siege Expansion Showcased

Thanks to several readers for pointing to the press release announcing Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna, the official expansion pack to Gas Powered Games' popular PC FRPG. There's also an interview at IGN PC which offers more details on this Mad Doc co-developed expansion, promising "..a completely new series of fabulous locations.. UI enhancements, new monsters and a massive amount of new stuff throughout the game." Meanwhile, the original Dungeon Siege is still proving popular with fans and mod makers, with the Copperhead sci-fi total conversion a current favorite.

Comments

FRPG?

[Gunsmithy]

On the MGS website for Dungeon Siege, it seems that FRPG is a "Fantasy Role Playing Game." Isn't that kind of redundant? Most all RPGs are fantasy, except for Leisure Suit Larry. ...well, that's fantasy too, but you get my drift.

Re:FRPG?

[parliboy]

As opposed to a Sci-Fi Role-Playing Game perhaps?

Re:FRPG?

[Gunsmithy]

Sci-Fi is a type of fantasy. :P
Same basic concepts, different time period.

Re:FRPG?

[Repton]

Well ... Perhaps. But for most people, "fantasy" means magic and mediaeval technology.

So it's useful as a way of distinguishing it from games like Fallout or (perhaps) DX.

Re:So when ...

[Gunsmithy]

Well, if they port it over to the Xbox, you can technically play it on Linux.

Interesting.

[Mensa Babe]

Of course it is not WorldForge, no doubt, but for a proprietary software it sounds quite interesting. I also had no idea it is so popular. Could it be because of PR and marketing? I do not really think so.

Snore....

[SaddamHinsane]

So an update to what I though was the "Myst of RPG's". Click, click. Also while the engine and graphics were undeniably polished, the story and immersion factor I felt were seriously lacking. One example - I can still reel off the names and backstories of my BG 1 & 2 parties, Fron Jan Jansen to Jaheira. With Dungeon Snore I couldn't even tell you the names of my party let alone any background to them.

Re:Snore....

[tprime]

Now that RPGs are pretty, the development of the plot seems to have fallen off. I too have finished DG, and also cannot remember the names of the characters in my party. I do remember:

Brian the Fist
Samson
El Cid
Marcus
Omar
Merlin

from the original Bards Tale
Damn I miss Bryan Fargo

Re:Snore....

[Anonymous Coward]

You're complaining about plot, and you reference a Bard's Tale game? Old games had just as weak a plot as newer ones. I don't understand why they were more fun (although I acknowledge the fact that they often were for some reason), but "plot" isn't it.

*shrug*

[August_zero]

It was a pretty game, and it was decent, but very plain, and it got dull rather quickly. Maybe if the expansion is loaded with "80% more FUN!!!!" and "50% less Click!" I may consider it. But personally I find the Aurora (NWN) engine a lot more verstile and interesting.

Re:*shrug*

[zeno_2]

I worked at a company who did tech support for the microsoft games when Dungeon Siege came out. We were all pretty excited for it, but the hype really didn't last that long. What it seemed like to me is that if you played the game for a fairly good amount of time, you could really create a character that was really good at melee, range, and the 2 types of magic. There was no difference in characters that I could see. In my opinion the game really just isnt' that fun unfortunately.

I also got NWN when it first came out, and got somewhat far into it, but it really didn't grab me too much, at least the story of it. The expansion came out recently and I was much more impressed by that, but unfortunately i dont have a ton of time in the summer to play games so I haven't been able to get too far into it. I would say that the people out there making mods are doing more for NWN then they are for Dungeon Siege. I mean with NWN, there are ALOT of characters that you can make and play before you start getting bored. With Dungeon Siege, you can be a sword guy, an archer, or a mage.

In any case, Dungeon Siege, a year or so later, is really not something I would be interested in re-installing, let alone spending money so I can take my sword guy / archer / mage to. I think id rather mess around with the v1.10 beta patch for diablo 2 or watch the dust collect on my monitor...

So who's making it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Chris is busy with DS2 and RBWG2 (if you dont know what RBW2 is, i cant tell you, sorry.. but i can assure you he is working on another project right now...) so he cant be doing this expansion.. so who is making it?

Re:So when ...

[quinkin]

Umm, well no not exactly.

That exploit is regarding ways to run linux (and possibly copied games) on an unmodded XBox.

A rather different issue to running DS on linux (XBox linux or otherwise).

Karma: +5 Pedant.

Q.

This is off topic.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is off topic.

I the real problem was it had an ending

[DrSkwid]

After all, what's the point of levelling when there's no where to go.

I'd got spells in my backpack I was looking forward to using but never got enough xp and here I was finishing the game.

I played it like an RPG, working out how to max my stats for best effect but then I was too goddam tough but what was one to do?
"I think I'll let my healer go so I can make the game a bit harder"
or
"perhaps I should leave the donkey behind so I can carry less stuff so I can make the game a bit harder"

and before I'd decided it was "well done, you did it, game over"

shame because the engine is really nice

That game would have benefitted from a random map generator and MOBS of ever increasing difficulty.

Is It Too Late To Wish?

[robbway]

If they would completely replace multiplayer with low-lag, story-driven, and continuous multiplayer mode, where you could save your stats and stuff, maybe people would be drawn in.

On the positive side, the original game is now priced under $20, and there is extensive information for modding on the official site which was available before release. It's pretty impressive for a Microsoft-ware to encourage mods and not lock you out of everything.

Re:Is It Too Late To Wish?

[Quinn]

There's a beta of the SecureChar system, but it looks like it'll only ever run on the biblically-genred Elemental mod.

Server-based characters would greatly enhance the playability of Dungeon Siege. Right now, anyone can hack themself up to god status, so why bother playing multiplayer? I was hoping Dungeon Siege would be a hi-res version of Diablo II, but without a Battle.net equivalent, it falls flat.

The single-player story is teh sux, making it little more than a beautiful engine demo. (And it is a beautiful game.)

Best game I never played.

[darkmayo]

This guy was just a few clicks away from being completely automatic. More than once my little guy would run off by himself without my control and run through a chunk of dungeon just leading from one monster to another...

not sure if they ever fixed that.. since the excitement of not doing anything waned thin real quick.

ulp

[August_zero]

The Mod commuinity is what really makes NWN a treat. I agree that the basic campaign that came with it was not all that great. CLiche and boring at the beggining and the end, though there were some good bits in the middle.

If your looking for some great, user created mods, check out the Penultimate and Penultimate re-rolled series.
They are definately worth a download.