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The Making of Dungeon Siege

Posted by Zonk on from the next-on-inside-the-dungeon dept.

Over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun Keiron Gillen has a writeup he did back before the original Dungeon Siege released. Something of a post-mortem, he and designer Chris Taylor discuss what makes the mostly traditional hack n' slasher unique. "Technologically speaking, the most distinctive element of Dungeon Siege was how it streamed its levels. Throughout the huge world, there wasn't a single loading pause. 'When you're in a fantasy game...' Chris reaches for a metaphor to explain why this is so important, 'Well, imagine if it's a movie, and if you have to change the film every ten minutes, you wouldn't be able to immerse yourself into the Fantasy. By eliminating loading screens we were able to keep people in the game, and much more immersed in this world. You become one with the game. You could melt into the monitor and the keyboard and the mouse.'"

8 of 29 comments (clear)

  1. Loading screens by geekboy642 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Actually I've never wanted to melt into my keyboard and mouse. That seems like it may cause more harm than it helps.

    Sarcasm aside, it seems like games are only going the other direction, with the notable exceptions of this game and EVE-Online. I could certainly appreciate more games thinking ahead. One big reason (in my opinion) that they don't is that modern games try to squeeze every erg of power out to drive ever more and more detailed graphics. If the glitz-obsessed gamers and companies could step back from the bleeding edge a notch or two, this "level streaming" thing would be a lot more common-place.

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    1. Re:Loading screens by IndieKid · · Score: 2, Insightful

      World of Warcraft is a pretty good example of how loading screens can be (mostly) avoided. The game world is huge and you can travel from zone to zone seamlessly.

      Actually there are loading screens between the three 'continents' (Outland isn't really a continent), and between the main zones and instances, but even then the loading is pretty quick. I guess Blizzard thought the lack of loading screens (and hence a more immersive world) was more important than bleeding edge graphics.

  2. No loading screens, just long waits... by Splurch · · Score: 3, Informative

    Loading screen or not, it still had long wait periods where you would travel down a descending elevator or something. They just masked the load screens, didn't really remove them.

    1. Re:No loading screens, just long waits... by I'll+Provide+The+War · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is the same technique that Metroid Prime has used. Large areas are connected by small hallways to allow the next area to begin loading. Sometimes you reach the next door before the area behind it is loaded and it refuses to open for several seconds. The same thing still occurs on the 3rd installation for the Wii released last week. It actually seems like a bug if you do not know why the doors fail to always open immediately.

    2. Re:No loading screens, just long waits... by Paolone · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The flipside of this is having to search the entire world to find the one little switch, door, or object that you missed the first time through with no idea where it could possibly be. No, what are you describing is a tree you are forced deeply to "go on". What GP and me want is a game that allows you to get there in more than one way. I found Dungeon Siege terribly boring, but then NOX spoiled me happy (not that it's not linear, but i find its gameplay extremely more varied).
  3. still going strong by rucs_hack · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I still play dungeon siege 2, it's one of only two games I have installed, although the broken world expansion, while it add lots of niceness that makes the main game far better, is a bit small, just another chapter really.

    I keep looking to see if dungeon siege 3 is ever coming. I thought this article appearing on slashdot was an indication of such an event, seems not though. Shame.

  4. For More Technical Details... by simon_clarkstone · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If you want the technical details, read The Continuous World of Dungeon Siege (a fascinating read).

    To avoid floating-point problems and to allow continuous loading, the world was split up into nodes with specified transformations between them. This resulted in a world that often cannot be mapped, as it would pass through itself. There were also many tricks that were used to fit the huge number of objects in memory. Many things self-destruct, or disappear if out of sight for more that a few minutes.

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  5. (Enter asinine subject you think is witty here.) by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 2, Funny

    The Making of Dungeon Siege

    Interviewer: So, how did you guys go about making Dungeon Siege?

    Dungeon Siege Developer: Copied Diablo and slapped it in a true 3D engine.

    Interviewer: Thanks! Next up on our show, how Morgan Webb, tall and dark, can be so hot face-on, but have such a damned scary profile.

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