Dungeon Siege 3 - Community Interview

Dhruin

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The Obsidian blog has the first of a series of community interviews with their developers -the first features Nathaniel Chapman answering questions on Dungeon Siege 3. There are some meaty answers such as this partial snip of a long response to WorstUsernameEver's question on why they didn't continue the series' party-based mechanic:
Personally, I’d argue that the KotOR and Dragon Age games are not successful directly as a result of their party mechanics or their combat mechanics generally. Instead, I believe they are successful because they have great production values and present high-quality settings, stories, and characters that players find engaging. This is backed up by what you see reviewers highlighting as positives in their reviews for the games.
Having played a lot of more complex party-based combat games (like Icewind Dale or the BG games, or Final Fantasy Tactics) I’ve noticed that there’s actually a substantial difference between “Party Based Combat Games with Story” (like IWD or BG2) and “Story Games with Party Based Combat” (like KotOR and DA). It sounds like semantics, but the difference is that in Dragon Age or KotOR, combat is the stuff you do in between the meat of the game, which is dialogue, exploration, and character interaction. Compare that with IWD, where clearly the combat gameplay is the primary focus and the dialogue, exploration and character interaction is supplemental to that focus.
So, because of that difference, I’d argue Dragon Age and KotOR are successful because of reasons other than their party-based gameplay. And, our ability to succeed at the elements KotOR and DA succeed at – that is, crafting an engaging story, setting and characters – is partly independent of our particular combat mechanics. So when I look at the success of games like Dragon Age and KotOR, the message I take away is not “party based games are successful.” Instead, it is “story-driven games with engaging characters and high production values are successful.”
And, due to the nature of the series, we knew were going to rely more on combat vs. storytelling to get you through the game. So, those things added up in my mind such that I didn’t feel the success of other party based games was a strong reason to pursue party-based gameplay in DS3.
More information.
 
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I'm thoroughly disappointed in this game. What annoyed me the most was the awkward view angle. It had so much potential. I played just a few hours when it first came out and I haven't touched it since. I'm going to use this as one of my trade-ins for Skyrim...
 
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D3 was the definition of consolefied . Sacred 2 and expantion was fun.
 
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Having played a lot of more complex party-based combat games (like Icewind Dale or the BG games, or Final Fantasy Tactics) I’ve noticed that there’s actually a substantial difference between “Party Based Combat Games with Story” (like IWD or BG2) and “Story Games with Party Based Combat” (like KotOR and DA). It sounds like semantics, but the difference is that in Dragon Age or KotOR, combat is the stuff you do in between the meat of the game, which is dialogue, exploration, and character interaction. Compare that with IWD, where clearly the combat gameplay is the primary focus and the dialogue, exploration and character interaction is supplemental to that focus.

Very well said !

At last someone manages to do a distinction between the two !
 
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Personally, I'm not a big fan of party-based games. I played IWD, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, and many others. Why? Because that's all there was for the most part. I much prefer a single-player game. I want to go adventuring on my own, fight on my own, and explore on my own. To me, the endless party and inventory shuffling and micro-management get in the way of game play. That's why I was so taken with the Gothic series and Fallout 3. I even liked Two Worlds despite its atrocious dialogue. The Witcher was very good, but still a bit too linear. Morrowind was outstanding at the time. Oblivion? Not so much. I also played many of the Star Wars games. Great fun, but still a more on the party side than I find ideal.
My ideal game is a large open world, non-linear play and story, single player combat, exploration, reasonable leveling up, but not to the point of god-like ability.
I like the ability to think out alternative solutions to combat or quests, to be stealthy and to use a variety of weapons.

Any suggestions, given my tastes?
 
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I like the ability to think out alternative solutions to combat or quests, to be stealthy and to use a variety of weapons.

Any suggestions, given my tastes?

Well if you don't have Deus Ex: Human Revolution yet then it definitely covers the stealth and alternate solution, variety of weapons etc etc.
 
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Dungeon Siege 3 is a pile of steaming consolidated production crap. The poor knobs that hacked away at building it must be hurting.

Combat is shallow (you just spam attack enemies and fall back once in a while), repetitive (they always run at you and attack, same old same old) and pointless (there really is no point to it, character customization is bland, so you don't fight for the experience or the shiny stuff, economy is ridiculous, so you don't fight for the gold or the loot, and the plot really doesn't need a fraction of the combat in the game).

Characters are forgettable at best (that is, if they ever register in your mind) and the plot is a general mess. Level design is the usual dungeon design you saw back in Dungeon Siege 1, which is boring boring boring and not interesting in the slightest. Dungeon Siege 2, on the other hand, had some pretty awesome level design, by far the highlight of the game.

And the graphics are crap. Dungeon Siege 2 looks prettier even though the graphics are not as good. Dungeon Siege 3 is, by all accounts a console port. Any old graphic card will run it on maximum without problem. Not "any", but basically anything better than an old X1950Pro, even even that one will do.
 
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Gotta say I much prefer the party approach, myself, as it lets me explore all the facets of the game as I play. I can have magic blasters, healers, dual-wielding bezerkers, and stealthy monks/thieves all within the same game. This is particularly attractive now that I don't get quite as much game-times as I once did - I can't be playing a 100hr RPG over and over to experience different character builds. Instead, a single run through with everything is much more enjoyable.

On top of that, combat tends to be more tactical in party games because you have a full array of options both in terms of abilities, and formation.

That's not to say that single character games aren't great fun, but I always find my favourites to be the party-based ones.
 
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