Dungeon Siege II Busts Out Trailer

Thanks to RPGDot for pointing out there's a trailer for Microsoft/Gas Powered Games' Dungeon Siege II available from the official DSII site, as well as via Gamers Hell, showcasing a lush cinematic-style teaser (using the in-game engine) for this PC RPG sequel, which is simply listed as "coming 2004". The original Dungeon Siege was largely well-received, but sparked some complaints about repetitiveness/linearity, so it'll be interesting to see how the sequel develops the gameplay.

Comments

Original Dungeon Siege

[kryptoknight]

Dungeon Siege was a fun game... for about three days. I hope Gas Powered Games makes DS II funner.

Some things I liked about the original Dungeon Siege:
- No load time between levels!
- the pack mule is very convenient for hording loot from the dungeons.
- cool variety of weapons and spells like the goblin flamethrower or railgun.
- the group/party feature

Some things I didn't like:
- repetitiveness of a hack and slash type game
- not enough unique items
- multiplayer online was laggy at times and wasn't fun

DS1 was okay, I hope DS2 is better!!

[LordYUK]

I got DS the day it came out, and got a little bit past the Dwarf Mines (for those of you who have never played it, thats maybe 2-3 hours into the game, IIRC).

The graphics were outstanding, you really feel like you're in a fantasy setting.

However, as PA put it around the time of the games release, you dont really play the game. Your character pretty much auto attacks whatever is in sight (handy for multiple character parties, but since you can (IIRC) pause a la baldurs gate to issue orders somewhat unneccesary), and it seemed to me that experience was only given to the character who got the deathblow. I know for a fact that my swordsman advanced hella fast compared to the mage (guess who usually killed stuff...) who was getting almost 0 Xp. The real killer was the lack of character depth. At least Diablo 2 your character was sorta different (unless you're the same class, and even then, they COULD still be different, not so with DS)...

I will probably take a look into DS 2, if they fix the XP system to be more DnDish (ie, equal shares of XP, with maybe a small *kill* bonus), because DS 1 was a good idea, just needs some polish. :)

Problems with DS experience system

[ThePyro]

Actually you don't need to kill a monster in DS to get experience. Just hitting the monster or casting a spell was enough to get some experience. In fact, I don't think there was any bonus at all for delivering a death blow.

Yet, in my experience, melee characters always advanced far more quickly than all my other characters. I tried going through the single-player campaign multiple times with various party configurations and strategies, but nothing seemed to help (exception: if you can get everyone in your party to a certain critical level, probably around 30-40, it becomes much easier to advance them at the same pace). Even tried making it through as a solo nature mage once :)

The problem is that melee characters just do a ton more damage than other classes, even when at the same character level. Granted, there are a few powerful spells that will allow your mages to keep up, but you would have to spend 90% of your gold on mana potions in order to use them often enough. Meanwhile, your mindless grunts just hack, hack, hack and slash, slash, slash their way to the top.

Mages just plain suck for 90% of the game! For the first dozen hours of gameplay, every spell you've got does LESS damage than a single hit from a decent sword... AND you have to pay mana to cast the thing.

And once a few characters in your party gain a slight experience advantage, it becomes even more difficult for the others to catch up.

I really would have preferred that all experience be equally divided among the party...