Chris Taylor Talks Dungeon Siege II Details

Thanks to GameSpy for its overview of the changes and interview with Gas Powered Games boss Chris Taylor regarding PC action RPG sequel Dungeon Siege II, due out via Microsoft later in 2004. Taylor, lead designer of the classic RTS Total Annihilation, discusses the original Dungeon Siege ("Overall the response was very positive, and most criticism was offered as a call for features in a sequel"), and reveals features for the sequel including (Phantasy Star Online mag-like?) "exotic pets", of which he explains: "You can buy these and develop them by feeding them different items you find in the world."

Comments

Exotic pets eating items? reminds me of something

[*weasel]

It reminds of the classiest 'garbage collection' design I encountered in early gaming.

Back in the day there was a frickin awesome game, Alternate Reality, published by Datasoft. Being an very old game, and having fixed memory limits, the developer had to keep players from hoarding too many items.

Thereby 'the devourer' was added to the game. It was a mean-and-nasty that would track down and attack the player. During combat, the devourer would eat random items from the player's pack.

The thing is, (unknown to me at the time) the devourer only came out when the player was getting dangerously close to the item limit.

Sure, you could eventually get powerful enough to fend one off before you lost an item - but another would always come.

It was just a real classy, practical design solution to a hardware limitation.

Though this has only tangential bearing on Dungeon Siege at best - Damn I loved that game.

(There were in fact 2 connected AR games, of a larger planned series. The City, and The Dungeon were the released games. I played primarily The Dungeon, and am only certain of the devourer in that context. I'm not certain if it was present in The City.)

DS I, Mac Version: C

[Spencerian]

GPG actually ported DS to Mac OS X. It's playability was stronger due to a typical Mac's better-than-standard-issue video card (in my case, initially a GeForce 4MX 32MB).

It wasn't much different than Diablo II in playability, although I appreciated the ability to blend abilities to create characters, unlike in Diablo II where the character type is quite fixed.

I, too, was disappointed with the overall plot (the word "contrived" fits well) and lacked Diablo and Diablo II's storyline that kept its rigid universe interesting. Weapons, armor, and graphics were very nice, including the use of a true mule for loot (no other game since that has been popular enough for me to play on Mac OS X has duplicated this), the wide, wide world that had lots to explore (particularly the MP map), and showing definitive changes to the character's appearance as armor and weapons are added.

The bad news: The Mac version lacked an inherent MP game list system, since DirectPlay is not available for Mac OS X. Thankfully, GameRanger, a free game access service for some Mac games, worked well to link up Mac users. Next, while the Mac and PC versions essentially did and used the same resources, the use of DirectPlay for the PC version and coding changes with the Mac version made it impossible to play with PC users, nor was it possible to port character or game files from PC version to Mac, or vice versa.

That, and stability was a problem in some configurations. Overall, I enjoyed it for many months--it was actually the first game that broke my routine play of Diablo II, after I played that game and its expansion for almost 3 years.

Neither Diablo II nor Dungeon Siege hold a candle to Neverwinter Nights and its 2 expansions. Being an online adaptation of the D&D world, this game was designed for storylines, but does not slouch on game play in the slightest. And, although the official Mac versions of the two game expansions are not yet available, Mac OS X users can install the Linux game components to play both expansions without issue. Character and game files are easily transportable, and Mac, Windows, and Linux users can play and host without issue (only the Windows users can create worlds as the toolset was made only for this platform).

Still, I would appreciate a DS II if it arrives for Mac OS X. However, since GPG (and the Mac company, MacSoft, that ported the game) has not worked to bring its single expansion of DS I, called Legends of Arrana, to Mac OS X, I doubt it may show any earlier than 1 year--if at all--after DS II arrives for the PC. And, after enjoying the diversity of NWN, I'd be more cautious on the quality and usability of a GPS game.