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Dungeon Siege III Being Developed by Obsidian
Square Enix has announced that it will be publishing Dungeon Siege III, which is in development at Obsidian Entertainment, makers of Alpha Protocol, Neverwinter Nights 2, and the as yet unfinished Fallout: New Vegas. Obsidian will be receiving input from Gas Powered Games, the developer behind the first two installments in the Dungeon Siege series. No release date has been set, but the game is planned for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360, and it will include a co-op mode.
Another game to be butchered by SE. Supcom 1 was a great game. Supcom 2 sucked hardcore.
I never played Dungeon Siege 1 or 2. I remember reading about Dungeon Siege before it came out in the gaming magazine I subscribed to back then. I wasn't very interested in the fantasy/RPG genre back then.
Are Dungeon Siege 1 and 2 something I should consider checking out? Any feedback for me slashdot? Good? Bad? Meh?
Is this giving Uwe Boll more fodder for another movie?
Mess not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.
I had some sort of sick obsession with Dungeon Seige and the expansion, never really did the whole "Dungeon Seige 2" thing. If Obsidian brings a little Fallout NPC/Open-world magic to this, it could be a pretty good game.
Innovative/rich storytelling. Lacks polish. Story-killing bugs will be corrected in a future patch. Expansion coming in 5-8 months.
Not that I'm cynical.
I've played the first game, the game itself is okey. I think Diablo 2 and Titan Quest are both better action rpg's. The musical score in Dungeon Siege is fantastic, Jeremy Soule best soundtrack in a game yet in my opinion.
The 1st Dungeon Siege was great. Very pretty for its time.
The 2nd was unplayable. Meaning that you basically watched it play itself. Combat was thoughtless. The game was always one long path (even in the 1st version), but it got worse in the 2nd.
They're ok-ish. Diablo clones, basically, whose only real distinction is that you get control of a full party, rather than the usual individual (with possible AI follower) that you get in the genre. However, I note that this is allegedly going out the window in the third game, so you'll be controlling a single character, as in umpteen other games.
I played the first game to completion, and about half of the second game before I got too bored to continue. The first game started out well, and the whole "no loading screens" thing felt pretty novel at the time; walking into a building or dungeon and having the game transition seemlessly felt pretty novel in the days before WoW (and even WoW has loading screens when changing continent or going into an instance). Early on, it felt pretty fun, with lots of changes in the environment and the terrain. Unfortunately, the game's mid-section is tedious in the extreme, with some very long, highly repetitive dungeons which just seem to go on forever. Things improve somewhat again towards the end, with a few large and extremely epic boss fights, but I'm not sure how many players would make it that far. The game also had a few balance problems; in particular, it was very hard to keep characters levelled up in nature magic (the healing-build) at the same rate as your other characters would be advancing in the offensive skills.
The second game I found it much harder to get into. Despite a generally better and less generic plot, it seemed to have a lot of the flaws of the first game, but amplified further. The early combat areas were monotonous, and maybe it's just me, but I found the difficultly level extremely steep (and while nothing special, I'm not generally bad at this genre). One thing common to both games is that you'll get more out of them if you have somebody to play them co-op with.
So the third game... I don't think I personally will be bothering. It's not a genre I'm head over heels in love with, and with the full-party-control apparently cut, I'd probably wait for Diablo 3 if I wanted to play a click-fest.
DS1 was pretty good. Very nice graphics (when it came out about 10 years ago). Lacked load screens. It auto-loaded in the background as you traveled. It was pretty much 1 long road you walked down killing things.
Comparable to Diablo, but 3D vs (then, maybe now never played it) Diablo's 2D.
DS2 was not very good. They had removed even the thought of combat tactics. Now you just pointed and your people did their stuff in that general direction. You just watched your people swing and cast spells automatically, according to some AI script you couldn't touch. It felt like the game played itself but required you to keep clicking forward. Truly mindless and not worth touching. By then most other games caught up to it in terms of graphics.
DS2 was the only game where I got into the Beta and decided NOT to buy it because of my Beta experience. It was really bad.
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Maybe I should reinstall DS1. I miss playing RPGs (which this wasn't really), but no longer have the time to get into them. When I have a half hour to play I can't remember what quests I was doing 2 weeks ago and where I was in the them. DS's "on rails" vs. "open world" style removes that depth and the need to remember my task (my task is to kill things in front of me, and enjoy the magic items and scenery). In DS1, you got to control the combat (when to cast spells and who to cast them on); DS2 didn't even let you control that.
Is this Obsidian Entertainment's curse?
"We need a developer for the sequel of our game."
"I know of a studio that's great at sequels! They made such sequels as KoTOR 2, Neverwinter nights: , and many more!"
"Well, what are we waiting for! Let's not give them a chance to come up with a game of their own!"
I know I'm disregarding the first two Fallout games and planescape (which surely was given admission by Bioware), but otherwise, come on! The Alien RPG got cancelled, Torn got cancelled, and I'm sure they had alot of working titles that never made it past the drawing desk.
Give them another chance to create something grand again! They have it in them, just comission them something first hand!
Obsidian: we'll take your hit game and make a sequel that's half as good!
Awesome, another console port designed to be used with a controller.
The first game was so-so when it came out -- worth playing, but not worth getting excited over -- but it was overrated. Now? Nah, just wait for Diablo 3 or try Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup or something like that.
Frankly I don't think it’s a franchise worth resurrecting. No memorable characters or IP. They are just trying to ride off the title's name recognition, that's it, really.
This game will waste your life. Don't clicky!
DS II and its expansions were as good as DS I
They managed to keep the quality through the first sequel, let's hope they can continue the same way.
In my opinion DS series were the ideal overnight-LAN games, they were short enough (you could play through the main storyline in ~10h), they had the 'casual' aspect in them (they were a lot more fun to play than Diablo or NWN) while keeping the cusomization rather high (carefully chosen characters with specific builds/gear could do wonders together).
Iv'e found myself missing similar games quite a few times in recent years.
Lets face it, he is a blessing in disguise. After him, nobody will ever dare make a movie about a game again. I mean it is not like anybody is still funding him after producing turd after turd right? Right? RIGHT?!?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
An extremely deep difficulty level?
Most of us that modded it cranked the difficulty level up to the extreme because it was too easy.
DS1 and 2 were awesome to Mod. Unfortunately the Dev's mostly abandoned DS2 while they went on to SupCom and the DS2 branch died an untimely death. Whereas people still continue to mod DS1 to this day.
There are many complete (overhaul) mods for DS1 -- some of the most famous being "Ultima V - Lazarus" or Ultima 6.
The expansions for both DS1 and DS2 were decent. I believe the game would of been much more of a hit (and made quite a bit more money) if the Dev's hadn't released DS2 with PvP broken beyond repair and if they hadn't worked so hard against the modding community.
Considering GPG is only going to "give input" -- it's possible that the idiotic ideas that were bandied about over the last few years by Chris Taylor wont come to fruition (i.e. turning it into a "space siege" clone).
You'd be better off getting Sacred Gold, which has random drops, huuuuge game world, tons of side quests (which you can choose to do/not do), rare set pieces to collect (which are also dropped randomly), cool skills to upgrade, just a better game. Also Divine Divinity is quite good and large, although it isn't quite as huge as Sacred IMHO.
The problem with the DS games is they are VERY linear, with the cool set armor always in the same place guarded by the same monsters, and by the time you really get something good to use the game is finished. It just doesn't have much in the way of reason to replay and while it looked good at the time the whole thing was just kinda...meh.
If you like those style of games you'd be better off with one of the above, and since GOG has NO DRM and everything "just works" on x86 and x64 it is just a better deal. Also their prices are cheap enough their games are pretty much impulse buys, so if you decide you don't care for one it isn't really gonna bother you. But if you want more than just a couple of days play either of the above will be a better game than DS 1 or 2, both in length and gameplay wise IMHO.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
DS1 is literally the only game I have not finished to completion. I stopped somewhere near to Chapter 7, after preferring actual work to the game. I hesitate to even call it a game, as it was that bad.
It contained no measurable plot or setting at all. "Oh, an evil force has invaded! Fight them!" After spending 2-4 monotonous hours following a pre-determined course -- which was instructed to you in a 2-sentence horrifically-voiced conversation -- the chapter comes to an end, with a one-line sentence to advance the story. But it kept things interesting, right? Wrong! It describes the very damned actions that you just made!
Player: *spends 2 hours fighting through an amazingly boring, seemingly never-ending Goblin maze* (kill count: 1,200 identical Goblins)
Narrator: "And our hero defeats the Goblins, and journeys on. [NEXT CHAPTER]." Hey, thanks, that was inspiring!
And then the same process starts all over again. The lack of a story would be forgivable if it had exciting gameplay. Except, it doesn't. You move your party, they auto-attack, and if you want, you can join in by selecting which of the dozens of enemies to attack. That's it. There are no thrilling tactics. You literally watch the game unfold.
What choices do you have? You primarily find yourself positioning the party, and activating heal-over-time nature spells. You can manually attack with 1 pre-selected offensive nature/combat spell, but all the selections suck. Offensive spells take 3-10 repeated casts to kill 1 out of the 100 enemies. There are no spectacular AoEs. Buffing? You can try it, but these add bonuses so marginal they are laughable, like +1 STR, when you have 40. Ranged? Better left to AI, as it leaves the party vulnerable. So you tank with a melee character. And you click, and you click, over and over.
Loot? Not even fun for OCD gamers. All loot is procedurally generated. "Yay, a Hammer of Slaughter +32!" "Oh wait, I already have +30, and it only does 2 less damage. *yawn*"
Environment? The engine itself is the only good thing about this game. Landscapes are beautiful... for the first hour. Then everything begins to look the same, as you are herded along the same path, with nowhere else to go but the way forward. Any chance you get to admire the surroundings is ruined by identical computer-spawned ambushes every 10-20 seconds. It discourages you from exploring, else you waste more time fighting the same 4-6 mobs for the 300th time.
Dungeon Siege was just... awful. I wouldn't play it again, even for $500. I felt the same way about District 9, the only movie I despised in over 20 years.
Hooray! Two of the most over hyped developers in the industry team up with the most over rated publisher to make a sequel to one of the most over rated franchises!
I agree with Divine Divinity. I recently purchased it from GOG.com and it's well worth playing. I've been waiting for a good sale on Sacred Gold, but it's been on my to buy list for a long time.
Never played DS 2, but I got seriously bored with DS 1 after not very long. It's very linear, very repetitive and very dull. I wouldn't recommend it.
I don't like comparing them to "serious" RPGs. They're less complex, take less time to complete, and are fairly linear.
That's not to say that they're not enjoyable -- they keep my attention throughout the story, and have some of the best art/graphics I've seen in an RPG (with distinctive graphics and monsters in each dungeon, which is a very nice touch). If anything, their simplicity makes it easy to pick up or put down on a whim.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
After the complete fuckup that was Knights of the Old Republic II I am never buying anything that Obsidian creates again.
-- Linux user #369862
Hopefully they will do a more competent job than on Dungeon Siege 2.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Heck, these games practically play themselves.
I'm disappointed. I expected more from Obsidian.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
DS2 was not very good. They had removed even the thought of combat tactics. Now you just pointed and your people did their stuff in that general direction. You just watched your people swing and cast spells automatically, according to some AI script you couldn't touch. It felt like the game played itself but required you to keep clicking forward. Truly mindless and not worth touching.
wrong, the auto combat was disabled by default just because many people whined about it in DS1 and you had to go check some boxes to enable it. I enjoyed DS1 more, DS2 felt kinda arcadeish, but it was a bit more difficult and "pretty". liked it better on the second playthrough.
Stop Computers/Cars Analogies on S
Sacred Gold & Divine Divinity
wow those look pretty shitty I already played Diablo I. if you want proper good looking infinite dungeon crawling go get Torchlight.
Stop Computers/Cars Analogies on S
The first one was interesting because it was breaking new ground in several ways: the engine had no load times and you could smoothly transition from overland to dungeon and back, the mechanics of having a party instead of one hero were new to the genre, the AI was surprisingly good for the time (some say it was too good, leading to complaints of watching the game instead of playing it), and the quality of the music was far better than most video games at the time could boast. I'm not sure any of those are enough to recommend a game these days, although the complete lack of load times (necessarily meaning a completely contiguous world) is still uncommon; they're great games as-is, but how much better would Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2 have been without the load times?
Here is a clip of the music; the main theme to the first game.
I played Dungeon Siege 1. It never compelled me to actually finish it.
Titan Quest, though... I had to finish that one.
Difficult, eh?
IMO, the only way to die in-game would be to set options to manual control (assuming you didn't already do that) and then go away for half an hour or so (while in the middle of a boss fight, mind you!).
Personally, I hated DS2, while I basically loved DS1 - at least in Co-op.
Non-supporter of Online Activation and any other draconian DRM
The early combat areas were monotonous
Then Obsidian should fit right in
Here is to remembering(and hopefully soon forgetting) that terrible space mining station in KotOR2 with only boring mining robots that couldn't hit the broad side of a bus