[Shifty Geezer]

Originally Posted by ban25

I love the original DS, but the gameplay was all about building a large party (8 characters, or 7 and a mule). So far, I haven't seen more than one AI controlled henchman in DSIII, so that's a bit of a concern. Doesn't mean I won't like the game, of course, just that it bears more similarity to Diablo and BGDA than Dungeon Siege.

That's probably the right course for a controller based, direct control game. PC point-and-click interfaces make group management easy and lends itself to party-based RPGs like Baldur's Gate. The console experience took the Baldur's Gate style and reworked it into more of a Gauntlet style, which was definitely more fitting.

[Silent_Buddha]

Yeah consoles aren't really suited to a RTS style RPG (Dungeon Siege, Baldur's Gate, etc.) but are very well suited to action RPGs (Diablo, BGDA, etc.) as long as you tailor the game to console controller limitations.

I'm interested to see exactly how they are going to change the gameplay for DS 3 compared to the first two. Or if they are going to do something to make it easier to control multiple characters at a time, RTS style.

Regards,
SB

[Shifty Geezer]

Gas Powered Games made a DS for PSP. It played just like BGDA or Untold Legends on PSP. I'm sure they'll lift those same mechanics, with a *Whack* button and the other buttons used for spells, with the stance shifts on the shoulder buttons.

[dragonelite]

New preview seems to play well with 360 controller.
http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/rpg/dung...&mode=previews

And some screenshot
http://www.gamers.at/games/screensho...s&nGameID=5881

[phenix]

Release date is 24th of May for US, and 27th for Europe.

[dragonelite]

Nice...
ooh happy days summers are always boring in gaming land.

[dragonelite]

New gameplay i think 360 version.
http://www.4players.de/4players.php/..._Ausblick.html

[BoardBonobo]

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer

Gas Powered Games made a DS for PSP.

Yeah. And then they went and called it Throne of Agony which meant that every time I played it I just pictured some bronzed hero stuck on a toilet with a bum like a Japanese flag after a bad curry experience.

[dragonelite]

Just hope i can wear a helmet asap or have other hair cut because the main character is one ugly mofo looks way to much like justin bieber with that hair.

[Silent_Buddha]

Originally Posted by dragonelite

New gameplay i think 360 version.
http://www.4players.de/4players.php/..._Ausblick.html

Damn, while the graphics look decent it looks like they are abandoning almost everything that differentiated it from the all the other Diablo clones at the time. Moving to be more like Diablo and less like Dungeon Siege.

Kind of sucks that they appear to be abandoning the party based RPG/RTS based gameplay.

And dear god I hope they give us a proper PC UI. That inventory management system is a horror show compared to the simple elegance of the previous Dungeon Siege games.

I'll probably end up getting this anyway though as I'm a sucker for the mindless fun of Diablo style games.

Regards,
SB

[warcrow]

Played a few hours in coop with the final retail (PS3) last night and had a good time. It's not a perfect game by any means--it's got its issues--but at the end of the night we both agreed it was a lot of fun.

So some random thoughts of the good, the bad and the ugly:



- The graphics on the PS3 version are mediocre at best. Occasionally the frame rate dropped during busy scenes, but it was never unplayable due to this.

- We played as the duo Reinhart and Lucas. It seemed like a good match up once we started leveling up and unlocking abilities.

- My initial impression with the abilities, proficiencies, talents and deeps was...confusion. I don't think the game does a very good job of teaching the player what the everything really does. Yes, you get a wall of text during the tutorial, however I had a bit of a hard time making sense of it all. After a few hours it all makes sense though.

- This game is surprisingly deep in its RPG elements for a console RPG. And it's not on an Oblivion level, but it's much deeper than Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance (my console RPG standard for fun).

- Reinhart starts off slowly and awkwardly, but once you get a few levels in he gets some really wicked spells--especially the one we called the "Pain Mat". It's a spell that not only slows down mobs that walk over it, but does damage.

- We had one boss fight that lasted a good 10 minutes, and it felt fairly epic once we downed him. The cool thing is we were totally changing up tactics, switching positions and complimenting each other along the way. It was a really good boss fight. I hope the are more like it!

- Gold is shared, doesnt matter who picks it up.

- Loot appears to go whomever the item is fitted for, no matter who picks it up.

- We played on the normal difficulty and (once we got past the demo area) we wiped a few times. Once during a mini-boss fight, once where we both got rushed in a hallway and another because we were laughing too hard (we were just having a good time with it all).

- The ability to revive someone by holding the R1 button over their body is cool and helps to avoid frustration. If you get hit by something during the rez, the meter goes back to 0.

- The chatty Mass Effect-like wheel is fine I suppose, but something about makes it feel boring. I cant put my thumb on it just yet.

- At first loot didnt appear to show up on the character, but I finally got a pretty awesome magic globe and in my characters hands you could see the fire--it was cool.

- There are side quests, they are fun, they are typical of what you'd expect for this genre (kill someone, get this lost ring, kill someone, I lost my husband, kill someone, FedEx, kill someone).

- So far the environments have been enjoyably varied.

- If you're playing local coop and the other play steps away, after 1 minute of sitting idle his player will begin to follow you where you go.

- If there is a way to give each other something we didn't see it (that doesn't mean it doesn't exist!).

- Reinhart is a badass!

- Pressing the Left Stick IN sucks up all the loot (sans items) near you. I didnt see this stated anywhere in the game, but it was in the reviews guide SE sent over.

- The really good loot is also rewarded to the players who explore.

in short: I'm having a really good time with the game via local coop despite it's issues. If you got any questions feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer.

[Shifty Geezer]

Pleased to hear it! Shame about the visuals, as what's been shown so far has been very promising. I guess they overreached a bit. Sounds like it's well worth getting for us dungeon crawler geeks.

[Scott_Arm]

How do you target spells and archery? In the demo I used the melee character. I thought the visuals were so-so, but that the game seemed like it could be fun.

[joker454]

Is this game worth it for just single player? I tried the demo on pc so no worry about visuals and frame rate, but just not sure there's enough meat there to justify buying this one.

[Billy Idol]

Originally Posted by joker454

Is this game worth it for just single player? I tried the demo on pc so no worry about visuals and frame rate, but just not sure there's enough meat there to justify buying this one.

I tried the demo on PC to yesterday using a gamepad and I immediately fell in love...and insta bought it on steam!!

I love those type of games and will play it single as well...I don't have any worries...cool thing: for just 5Euros more, I got the special edition with Dungeon Siege 1 and 2 as a bonus on steam!!!

Great!

[BoardBonobo]

I loved the original Dungeon Siege it was one of the games I played over and over. It had such a pretty aspect and great grinding mechanics. That probably accounted for as much of my time as Neverwinter Nights did...!

[joker454]

Ok, I put it back on my steam wishlist Prolly won't get it at full price as I still have a game backlog, but I'll get it at some point. I think I'd like to try Torchlight 2 first as well before getting DS3.

[Billy Idol]

wow....I love this game!!! super great so far...nothing to complain!

gamepad support is perfect!!!

[Grall]

Do you still get a party of AI characters in DS3, or are you all alone by yourself?

Do you get a mule (who can return to town to sell all your loot for you? )

[Xenus]

Joker I'm not sure about 3 but 1 and 2 were definitely deep enough with 20-30 hours of campaign before even considering the replayability.

[Billy Idol]

Originally Posted by Grall

Do you still get a party of AI characters in DS3, or are you all alone by yourself?

Do you get a mule (who can return to town to sell all your loot for you? )

I have one AI partner on my side, and in some rare instances further AI soldiers in a mission or so...AI partner is rather smart IMO and helps, even revives you when you die

[Sigfried1977]

Looks really nice on PC, and for once stereoscopic 3d has been well implemented.

[ban25]

Played online with a friend last night for two hours and had a blast. It's Diablo, not Dungeon Siege, but fun all the same. I appreciated the fact that online players have independent camera control and can independently go into the inventory, ability, and shop UI (the AI controls your character while you are in-menu). The final release also feels a bit more polished than the demo. I definitely want to get a 4-player game going this weekend.

[Shifty Geezer]

Got this as a gift, and have only looked a little way (rescued first captive in cave) as I intend to play it as an online coop with a friend. But so far I'm not as enthusiastic as many here, and I'm somewhat disgusted at the bugs. Camera is a PITA, zooming in when there's scenery; being unable to see what's going on is bad form. A couple of times my characters been frozen to the spot or to a linear path for a moment. My healing spell has stopped working sometimes, where I try to fire it and it just doesn't activate (not in village). There are others I've forgotten. And that's after 1.01. Pity gamers who don't update their games over the internet this generation!

Combat's more involved than typical for these games, but 9 skills in total for each character is very weak and means little variety. The fighter seems exceptionally dull. The need to change stances and ergo weapons to activate certain skills also makes gameplay quite complex. eg. Switch to ranged stance to shoot, then to other stance to use spell, then back again to use second spell, then back again to use close attack. Add in blocking and it can all get a bit muddled. I can appreciate they wanted to make the game more involved than just button mashing, which is necessary for this genre, but I think they went way too far in the other direction. The stats are also a tad confusing. DPS is an excellent metric, but I don't see anywhere a base damage for spells/skills. How come my lighting bolt does 100 damage when Attack DPS is like 30 and Ability DPs is like 20? Is that because it takes 2 seconds to cast? I suppose that makes sense, and is a rather brutal analysis of how spells in these games work. Have a DPS coefficient used for all skills, with skills either consolidating into a big blast or spreading out the damage. Some stats are just a mystery though. What does a 10 in Chaos:Ice mean? 10% chance to activate? 10 out of some unknown probability to activate? Ten damage a second when it does activate? Are we supposed to be looking all this up online, as seems the norm these days. If so, certainly on PS3 and PC, add a link in game to jump to a website! Or just stick the website on disk.

Edit: Oh, and perhaps the worst aspect, is no checkpoint saves! You have to save manually, and as you may get caught unawares with a difficult encounter (camera splurges in a tight environment so you can't see squat) and there's no emergency instant-heal, you never know when you'll get killed, so you have to think about using a save point every time you come across one or risk losing a load of play. How did that idea ever get through QA and testing?!

There are some good ideas here, but it feels rough and well shy of BDGA. This gen I've now played Untold Legends, Sacred 2, Dungeon Hunter Alliance, Deathspank, Torchlight (on PC), and DSIII, and none of them can hold a candle to the PS2 games. DnD: Daggerdale reportedly isn't any better. Even visually, DSIII and the like haven't got such things as dynamic shadow-casting lights and dynamic water! They add HD and some nice shaders over Snowblind's PS2 games, but don't advance anything else, such that a ten year old PS2 game can be more technically impressive. Given SB themselves aren't making one of these dungeon crawlers, I guess the genre is in the doldrums.

[BoardBonobo]

I have to admit I am a little disappointed with DSIII, it just doesn't feel right when I'm playing it. I really loved the first one and was hoping to at least game the same ambiance but sadly that's not the case. The graphics are hit and miss, though mostly miss. The dialogue and character interactions feels contrived and adds nothing to the experience.

It's a worthy follow up to DSII but not a touch on DSI. Shame.