Dungeon Siege 3 - Preview Roundup

Dhruin

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Hey, a sudden avalanche of Dungeon Siege 3 previews - and apparently the game might be due in May, though that sounds too soon to me given the lack of exposure to date.
Let's kick off with Rock, Paper, Shotgun:
In true RPG style, the place was quiet, but combat clearly wasn’t going to be very far away. For starters, as soon as I showed up, I was met by a ridiculous looking girl called Katarina in an incredibly hardworking +2 Corset of Holding, who warned me of a nasty ambush just outside the town gates. Since ambushes in RPGs only ever mean “Yippee! More loot!”, that didn’t seem like a huge problem, but I figured heroic honour demanded at least chatting to the locals and doing their inevitable odd-jobs first. Needless to say, they had plenty – but the style was slightly unexpected. I was expecting quick and dirty mission briefings, like the ones most hack-and-slash games throw in to pad things out. Instead, the appearance of the dialogue wheel quickly reminded me that I was playing an Obsidian game, and that they like their talky bits.
Dungeon Siege III offers far, far more dialogue than most hack-and-slash games, with full conversations, optional subjects to chat about, and proper back-story. This is good. Most of it is clearly optional, but its presence hopefully means a bit more narrative weight behind the later hack and slashing, as well as a return of Obsidian staples like proper relationships with companion characters and maybe even some decent choices. I doubt we’ll see the villain of the piece delivering lectures on Hegelian dialetics like in New Vegas, but every little helps.
The most intriguing bit though came once I’d been given a mission, dutifully headed off to put my sword through its face and take its stuff, and returned. Now, in a game whose name is synonymous with ‘give me more stuff’, I had the option to… turn down a reward. How… odd.
Eurogamer, with a snip on the engine:
Who knows, eh? It's certainly looking like a decent game, though. For one thing, Dungeon Siege III's driven by the team's own technology this time, with the all-new Onyx engine doing a very reasonable job of crafting shadowy caves with water trickling down the walls and sun-dappled forests where fireflies litter the afternoon air. Sword swings send out glitzy little flashes of light, crows erupt from trees when you pass, and while character models may not be over-burdened with charisma, the animation has a nice flourish and weight to it during combat, and the game manages to shove a decent number of enemies and particle effects on the screen at once without falling over when things get hectic.
On to Gamespot, with a form of after-action-report, though I'm going to quote the summary because George Ziets rocks:
To help curb potential living room fisticuffs, items and equipment you find during your travels are unique to the individual characters--meaning only one character may wear a particular pair of gloves or wield a specific staff. Inventory is also shared among the party members. Players may drop in and play and drop out when they're finished, with the computer retaking control of their discarded hero. In addition to co-op play, Obsidian is pouring a lot of effort into crafting a robust story. Creative writer Geroge Ziets, author of the moody Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer expansion, is penning this tale, with series' progenitor Chris Taylor serving as a project adviser. Be on the lookout for Dungeon Siege III this May.
NowGamer:
In Dungeon Siege II you have your basic attacks and spells on the one tier, then on the others you have your powers, which take a while to charge up then allow you to unleash a high damage attack on one enemy, or a big area-of-effect attack. In Dungeon Siege III there’s an intermediate tier of abilities that don’t take long to charge up, aren’t that powerful, but do add a bit of variety and tactical choice to proceedings. It’s not revolutionary though, it’s just good. And that’s Dungeon Siege III all over.
Strategy Informer:
Since this is the first Dungeon Siege coming to home consoles the controls have also been re-imagined for use on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 pads. Obsidian’s solution to cramming all your typical hot bar abilities on to a controller is a pretty elegant one. ...More information.
 
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I hated the original Dungeon Siege for lack of story and loved Dungeon Siege 2 for it was better. If obsidian can do better dialogue and story I'm sure I will love the game. Don't ruin the game obsidian. Just expect an insane amount of bugs as every release from obsidian has them.
 
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Obsidian certainly is notorious for the amount of bugs present in their games but to be fair, similar to Troika, Obsidian has long suffered from publishers rushing their work and forcing them to finish their ambitious games in an unreasonably short time-frame. Let's look back at just two examples of Obsidian not being given an appropriate amount of time to "finish" their games from a polishing/bug-killing standpoint: Kotor 2: 18 months. Fallout: New Vegas: 2 years (I think). Alpha Protocol, while not "polished" in some respects, wasn't really "buggy," at least from my experience with the game and compared to their other projects where they weren't given enough time. Either way, I'm usually willing to forgive Obsidian for the bugginess of their games because they make pretty unique and enjoyable RPGs, and I'm fairly confident they will do a good job on DS3 (although I'm not too excited about this one because hack n' slash games typically don't appeal to me).
 
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DS3 a stop gap ?
I find it hard to believe Blizzard will pull out better story and dialogs than this.
As far as I'm concerned, accepting a quest from a puppet is worse than following landmarks.
Hail Obsidian!
 
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Blizzard's writing has been pretty good lately. They also do awesome cut-scenes, and those are a legitimate way of conveying story. That said, I doubt D3 will be as good of a true RPG as DS3.
 
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It's a bit disappointing to quote that DS3 will evolve to join the mass of RPG with a single character. Not that I don't like but nothing can match diversity.
 
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I'm a sucker for Obsidian games, so this will be a day 1 buy for me. This company can do me no wrong. But I hope that the game will be more polished than the previous ones.
 
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From the Obsidian forums (aka, I didn't spot this, just reporting this, credit goes to C2B there for finding this), Golem.de has a video attached to their preview.
 
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I keep forgetting that DS3 is being made by Obsidian. I am so bored with action rpgs lately that I avoid any news on them at all, but since it's Obsidian I'll be buying this one as soon as it's released.

I hope it will be buggy and I hope it will be grand. It seems the buggier the release the better the rpg part is :p Some of my all time favorite rpgs were a buggy mess when they were released like with Fallout 1, 2 & NV, Bloodlines, Arcanum, etc.
 
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Last year we saw a deep rpg series go shallow (arcania) and this year we will see a shallow rpg get deeper... how things have turned on their heads.
 
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If they hold their hands over their ears whenever Chris Taylor speaks, the game has a good chance :)
 
Vampire: Bloodlines was a day one buy for me... sooooo yeah, day one buy. ;) Honestly, it's Obsidian and a few European developers... that's it for non indie RPGs. Altho there are some good Japanese developers. that classic western RPG feel is almost dead.
 
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Also a day 1 purchase for me.
And also because of Obsidian, since I hated previous Dungeon Siege games.
 
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I'm not a fan of any dev team/studio but i feel quite isolated now it's about Obsidian:
  • For me Obsidian isn't Fallout 1 but Fallout 2 and if FO1 is a top favorite I never enjoyed FO2 and never been able played much of it.
  • For PS:T it's for me one of the bad beginning I would quote as an example to avoid, boring and repetitive fights, pedant dialogs and repetitions too, tedious exploration and repetitive places, weird mood that didn't catch me at all. I don't know if the intent was to mimic PK Dick interrogations about mind world vs real world, but I enjoyed a lot ton of PK Dick books and not at all PS:T beginning.
  • The whole Icewind Dale series, well some fun fights design but tedious series from a RPG point of view.
  • BG2: DA well is this really noteworthy? Well ok, I never played it.
  • Kotor 2 as far I remember never been highlighted as better than Kotor 1 and in fact I remember it's more the reverse that was highlighted.
  • For NWN2 I don't remember so many gamers was fan of it and remember more that I had to struggle to defend it. It's still a game I would say good and more but with a bit too many weakness.
  • MotB has a huge writing for me and many good gameplay design point in particular the morale choices with no clear black/white answers. But the soul meter and some other points wasn't amazing design points just had the big plus to be original. But this game, certainly among my top favorites, also show writing weakness, if the global story could build well your compassion for some of your companions, it's also strange the total failure to make any of them attaching.
  • Alpha Protocol: I just tried the game, and still have to understand what's so fun in it.
  • FNV: Ok this one seems quite good from the few I played, that's only two for me among a long list, with MoTB.
  • DS3: Morph a party game to a single character game, that's a very bad point to them.
So really no I don't see any reason to be a fan of Obsidian.
 
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My god. You, sir! You are a poet. And with it such superior reasoning. I mean how could someone doubt all your fine brought up points. Nobody could compare.

But, dear Sir. You seem to live in a world that is full with flawless game companies. If you may direct me to them?
 
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My biggest concern for this PC game is that it has been consoleized. The reviewer at Gamespot actually played it on a PC but used a Xbox controler??? I will have to wait for more info on how the PC controls work. Otherwise the game looks like it could be a lot of fun.
 
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I'm not a fan of any dev team/studio but i feel quite isolated now it's about Obsidian:
  • For me Obsidian isn't Fallout 1 but Fallout 2 and if FO1 is a top favorite I never enjoyed FO2 and never been able played much of it.
  • For PS:T it's for me one of the bad beginning I would quote as an example to avoid, boring and repetitive fights, pedant dialogs and repetitions too, tedious exploration and repetitive places, weird mood that didn't catch me at all. I don't know if the intent was to mimic PK Dick interrogations about mind world vs real world, but I enjoyed a lot ton of PK Dick books and not at all PS:T beginning.
  • The whole Icewind Dale series, well some fun fights design but tedious series from a RPG point of view.
  • BG2: DA well is this really noteworthy? Well ok, I never played it.
  • Kotor 2 as far I remember never been highlighted as better than Kotor 1 and in fact I remember it's more the reverse that was highlighted.
  • For NWN2 I don't remember so many gamers was fan of it and remember more that I had to struggle to defend it. It's still a game I would say good and more but with a bit too many weakness.
  • MotB has a huge writing for me and many good gameplay design point in particular the morale choices with no clear black/white answers. But the soul meter and some other points wasn't amazing design points just had the big plus to be original. But this game, certainly among my top favorites, also show writing weakness, if the global story could build well your compassion for some of your companions, it's also strange the total failure to make any of them attaching.
  • Alpha Protocol: I just tried the game, and still have to understand what's so fun in it.
  • FNV: Ok this one seems quite good from the few I played, that's only two for me among a long list, with MoTB.
  • DS3: Morph a party game to a single character game, that's a very bad point to them.
So really no I don't see any reason to be a fan of Obsidian.
I respect your opinion, but I hope you know that you just slapped some of the greatest RPGs, and action-RPGs of all time in the face? How could you do that? Fallout 2? Icewind Dale? Mask of the Betrayer? Really?
 
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Messages
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I'm not a fan of any dev team/studio but i feel quite isolated now it's about Obsidian:
  • For me Obsidian isn't Fallout 1 but Fallout 2 and if FO1 is a top favorite I never enjoyed FO2 and never been able played much of it.
  • For PS:T it's for me one of the bad beginning I would quote as an example to avoid, boring and repetitive fights, pedant dialogs and repetitions too, tedious exploration and repetitive places, weird mood that didn't catch me at all. I don't know if the intent was to mimic PK Dick interrogations about mind world vs real world, but I enjoyed a lot ton of PK Dick books and not at all PS:T beginning.
  • The whole Icewind Dale series, well some fun fights design but tedious series from a RPG point of view.
  • BG2: DA well is this really noteworthy? Well ok, I never played it.
  • Kotor 2 as far I remember never been highlighted as better than Kotor 1 and in fact I remember it's more the reverse that was highlighted.
  • For NWN2 I don't remember so many gamers was fan of it and remember more that I had to struggle to defend it. It's still a game I would say good and more but with a bit too many weakness.
  • MotB has a huge writing for me and many good gameplay design point in particular the morale choices with no clear black/white answers. But the soul meter and some other points wasn't amazing design points just had the big plus to be original. But this game, certainly among my top favorites, also show writing weakness, if the global story could build well your compassion for some of your companions, it's also strange the total failure to make any of them attaching.
  • Alpha Protocol: I just tried the game, and still have to understand what's so fun in it.
  • FNV: Ok this one seems quite good from the few I played, that's only two for me among a long list, with MoTB.
  • DS3: Morph a party game to a single character game, that's a very bad point to them.
So really no I don't see any reason to be a fan of Obsidian.

Leaving aside that you're mixing in some Interplay games - I can't relate to your taste at all. I won't respond on every point, because we obviously just have completely different taste, but I'm perplexed by the DS3 thing.

They're taking a game with an irrelevant party that practically played itself and adding full dialogue and choices -- and you're focused on the irrelevant party? I don't think you can see the forest for the trees.
 
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Leaving aside that you're mixing in some Interplay games - I can't relate to your taste at all. I won't respond on every point, because we obviously just have completely different taste, but I'm perplexed by the DS3 thing.

They're taking a game with an irrelevant party that practically played itself and adding full dialogue and choices — and you're focused on the irrelevant party? I don't think you can see the forest for the trees.

The problem seems to be some people cant enjoy an rpg if it only has one character.
Bioware comes under attack for only allowing you to have a party of three.
 
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