Dungeon Siege III: Obsidian Square

[Darth InSidious]

Source

 

In the strangest statement since Rumsfeld's June 2002 NATO press conference, Square Enix and Obsidian Entertainment announce today a new coalition, to form a strong and stable development environment for Dungeon Siege III. The substances all parties were taking at the time have yet to be ascertained.

 

The game is going to be created "under the supervision" of Gas-Powered Games and Chris Taylor, that company's CEO and the human photocopier responsible for "developing" the Dungeon Siege concept.

 

 

As usual, Feargus "Thrice-Oleaginous" Urquhart, was also on-hand to proffer freeze-dried enthusiasm:

 

"It Is an Honor and a pleasure to Be part of the legend of Dungeon Siege," Said Obsidian boss, Feargus Urquhart. "This partnership with Square Enix is a milestone for the franchise and Obsidian, and the qualities of two companies in terms of scenario will be visible throughout the game."

A milestone for Obsidian, Feargus? Are you sure you don't mean a headstone?

 

Full Story @SWK

 

Has anyone checked the weather in Tartarus lately?

[ChAiNz.2da]

and the qualities of two companies in terms of scenario will be visible throughout the game.

Really? Thanks for the warning. Just saved myself $40

[DarthParametric]

Well even if it follows their usual standard, it couldn't be worse than the first two Dungeon Sieges.

[Miltiades]

New Vegas has me excited, but this is weird. Diablo and clones I tend to avoid. Still, the sequel factory has done a decent job so far.

[Mav]

I've never even heard of Dungeon Seige Vanilla... so yeah

[Astor]

The first Dungeon Siege was alright (although not excellent), I suppose, but I couldn't understand why they gave it a sequel.

 

So I understand the reasoning for this even less.

[Bob Lion54]

Two things I really liked about Dungeon Siege: The soundtrack and the name. It's a good name.

 

Unfortunately, that games are just boring. The first game played itself. All you really did was point to where your party went next. You literally just sat back and watched the fights.

 

They improved it a bit in the second game, but not nearly enough. It was still boring. Neither game had a story that kept me into them. They weren't bad, just not good either.

 

Obsidian is usually pretty good, so that has me interested, but not really excited.

[Astrotoy7]

How bizarre - take a moderately popular w-RPG franchise, offload it to a company now famous for botching franchises and team them with a j-RPG juggernaut.

 

Result? I would be amazed to hear they actually ship this title.

 

Maybe we will also get a Chocobo or Moogle Cameo?

 

mtfbwya

[jrrtoken]

Truthfully, the only aspect of DS3 that interests me is the fact that George Ziets is once againg serving as lead creative director a la MotB, so at least the setting and story should be unique and enthralling.

[Sabretooth]

Two things I really liked about Dungeon Siege: The soundtrack and the name. It's a good name.

The name makes no sense. How/why would you lay siege to a dungeon?!

 

Maybe we will also get a Chocobo or Moogle Cameo?

I find it sad how poor SE is trying to make profit in the Western markets by attempting to push aside EA and Activision, and all they get is "OMFG keep your Final Fantasy away from my (Insert Western Franchise Here)"

 

Truthfully, the only aspect of DS3 that interests me is the fact that George Ziets is once againg serving as lead creative director a la MotB, so at least the setting and story should be unique and enthralling.

I honestly can't imagine how deep of a story you can get in a dungeon crawler, but then I hated the combat in MotB and Planescape too. Maybe having lite combat would actually help a more enthralling story.

[DarthParametric]

I dunno, the normal story-driven RPG precepts you'd expect Obsidian to follow would be precluded in a Diablo clone to my way of thinking (as in Dungeon Siege 1 and 2). So I figure they are either just slapping the name on essentially a totally different game than the first two, or they will be making a mindless slash 'em up clickfest with minimal story and character interaction (i.e a true sequel).

[jrrtoken]

Source

 

This has been somewhat overlooked by all of the hubbub, but apparently the game was shown to a select few at the E3, so the development is actually in high-gear, instead of pre-post-production; no screenshots, though. Remember that elusive Onyx Engine, Obsidian's custom-made answer to a true RPG engine, that was first developed for the ill-fated Aliens: Crucible. Well, it's back, and apparently, it's a graphical and performance powerhouse. For example:

 

• The preview actually lauded over the graphics, particularly dynamic lighting and shadows.
  
• Animations were acclaimed as "smooth" and "realistic".
  
• Biggest of them all, Obsidian boasted that there's no such thing as transitional loading times in the Onyx Engine.
  

 

Technically speaking, this doesn't sound like Obsidian's handiwork, but considering that this is their first foray into proprietary tech, perhaps all they need is a DIY paradigm. Of course, this doesn't really allay any fears concerning bugs, though.

 

On to the second most important feature in a video game: the gameplay. The preview seems to give the impression of a standard ARPG - but with a twist. Combat is much more tactical and complex, supposedly giving the player more freedom in killing demonic bottomfeeders; swordplay is all structured around stance-based attacks, which requires the player swap poses due to an enemy's attributes and tactics. It sounds vaguely similar to KotOR 2's lightsaber stances, but much more involved and contextually-diverse.

 

Obsidian also seems to boast class diversity, eschewing the troika of caster/archer/swordsman. They don't elaborate, however, but I hope it's not just based on the "more is better" paradigm.

 

Then there's the story. Basically, the game is, at it's core, an ARPG, but unlike others, Obsidian seems to champion C&C, like always. The story is also strcutured to not "get in the way" of the combat, but to simply enhance it. Yes, it's quite vague, but I'm expecting something generally good, even for an ARPG.

 

Oh, and there's multiplayer co-op, but that's not really important, right?

[Sabretooth]

Biggest of them all, Obsidian boasted that there's no such thing as transitional loading times in the Onyx Engine.

I am unimpressed and unsurprised, as this is something the first Dungeon Siege pioneered (along with some other games of the time, like Halo). But if they manage to skip the initial loading as well, then that'll be an achievement in itself.

 

On to the second most important feature in a video game: the gameplay. The preview seems to give the impression of a standard ARPG - but with a twist. Combat is much more tactical and complex, supposedly giving the player more freedom in killing demonic bottomfeeders; swordplay is all structured around stance-based attacks, which requires the player swap poses due to an enemy's attributes and tactics.

Sounds identical to The Witcher actually. The game is described as an ARPG, even though it doesn't feel very much like one. I realised that this is so because it eschews the hack-and-slash action for a stance-based system and other decision-making. DS3 using something like that sounds good, it's light on the learning curve and implementation and works well too.

 

Then there's the story. Basically, the game is, at it's core, an ARPG, but unlike others, Obsidian seems to champion C&C, like always. The story is also strcutured to not "get in the way" of the combat, but to simply enhance it. Yes, it's quite vague, but I'm expecting something generally good, even for an ARPG.

Hint: Dungeon Siege's story didn't get in the way of the combat either. I still consider it a fine exercise in minimalistic existentialism.

[stoffe]

I am unimpressed and unsurprised, as this is something the first Dungeon Siege pioneered (along with some other games of the time, like Halo). But if they manage to skip the initial loading as well, then that'll be an achievement in itself.

 

I remember this being one of the (few) things I was impressed about in Dungeon Siege. Not a single loading screen or area transition in the whole game, and all building interiors were present directly in the game world; no oddities like what looks like a small hut having a palace-sized interior. Would have been a definite step back if a sequel didn't have the same seamlessness.

 

(That and the seemingly endless desert that you could actually get lost in. Sure it was just a number of cells that repeated over and over in a semi-random fashion, but it didn't feel that way when first playing )

 

Hint: Dungeon Siege's story didn't get in the way of the combat either. I still consider it a fine exercise in minimalistic existentialism.

 

Dungeon Siege had a story? That's one thing they'd do well to change in a sequel rather than stick to the original's concept, in my opinion. The original DS got pretty boring after a while when the only things to do were to admire beautiful the scenery and fight endless hordes of (functionally) near-identical enemies.

[Sabretooth]

Dungeon Siege had a story? That's one thing they'd do well to change in a sequel rather than stick to the original's concept, in my opinion.

 

Believe me, it's art.

[jawathehutt]

I remember this being one of the (few) things I was impressed about in Dungeon Siege. Not a single loading screen or area transition in the whole game, and all building interiors were present directly in the game world; no oddities like what looks like a small hut having a palace-sized interior. Would have been a definite step back if a sequel didn't have the same seamlessness.

Random nitpicking but it did have some loading bars, just they were rare and took less than 5 seconds even on old machines

And it had cool books. Probably not as good as in other role playing games but some of them were nice 30 second reads.

[Astrotoy7]

Hint: Dungeon Siege's story didn't get in the way of the combat either. I still consider it a fine exercise in minimalistic existentialism.

 

The more recent Bard's Tale on PC/console is worth a mention here .....not only that but alot of it was delivered musically... a true RPG Sing-a-long!! DS has its moments, but it didn't have that.

 

I'm not really a sing-a-long type of guy but the 'Bad Luck to be You' tune you kept hearing was really catchy.... It was just awesome how NPCs hassle and makes jokes at your characters expense for the whole game.

 

(This BBCode requires its accompanying plugin to work properly.)

 

"When you think you're out of luck....in the bollocks you'll get struck!"

 

mtfbwya

[DarthParametric]

IGN has a dev chat with Rich Taylor (project director) up - http://au.xbox360.ign.com/articles/110/1108596p1.html

 

Interesting that they have been working on it for 18 months. Not much other info other than "we'll talk about that at a later date".

[Miltiades]

And we've got our first in-game screens of the game. Doesn't look like a 2010 game to me, but graphics aren't everything, right?

[Sabretooth]

And we've got our first in-game screens of the game. Doesn't look like a 2010 game to me, but graphics aren't everything, right?

 

Atrocious ground textures, lack of texture blending, lack of antialiasing, absolutely generic fantasy archetypes, yep looks like a 2010 game to me alright.

 

See

Screenshots, Dragon Age 2

Screenshots, Fable III

[Achilles]

Hmmm....

 

Interview mentions vodaynoi and screenshot shows hero sporting what looks like Witcher's silver sword.

[DarthParametric]

Atrocious ground textures, lack of texture blending, lack of antialiasing

They did say that they were shots from a console version. Not that you'd be expecting a Crysis-killer from the PC version of course.

[Miltiades]

See

Screenshots, Dragon Age 2

Screenshots, Fable III

Well, you did pick the best of the best there.

 

Also, trailer at Gamesradar, which looks better. Also, Gamesradar guy complaining about it looking more like a JRPG than a WRPG. Okay, the guy wants another generic fantasy world to look at. Me, I wouldn't mind something else for a change. Besides, the first screenshot made me think of NWN2, not Final Fantasy.

[jrrtoken]

The graphical quality seems to be slightly more improved than DA2, and if we take BioWare's stammering excuse of "N-n-now, it's just pre-alpha; we swear! WE SWEAR!", then I suppose the same excuse can be applied here. Still, it's odd considering that all of the previews have been praising the landscapes and lighting schemes, which considering Obsidian, is an oddity by itself.

 

At least it seems to have a more inspired art direction than Dragon Age, which is definitely a plus; the spectre... thing is reminiscent of the spirit-eater tentacles in MotB.

[Sabretooth]

They did say that they were shots from a console version. Not that you'd be expecting a Crysis-killer from the PC version of course.

 

Console screenshots happens to be the flavour of the season and they doesn't make sense, so I'm going to ridicule them at every possible opportunity.