Forum Villain
Well, I've played the first two Dungeon Siege games and I love Obsidian. Sorry, wallet- you're going to be paying for this one.
"Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person that doesn't get it."
I played the first one and enjoyed it, but my wallet has prior commitments. I might pick III up down the road if the reviews are kind.
Considering that Dungeon Siege is basically a 3D Diablo knockoff, and Obsidian is… Obsidian, I honestly wonder what they're thinking. Probably the most dungeon crawly games the Obsidian team have under their belt so far are IWD and ToEE.
Obsidian has nothing to do with TOEE. Of course, that won't stop you from repeating that again and again Eric.. sigh.
As for this game, previews so far have been surprisingly positive, and since Dragon Age II has been a disappointment so far, I've been thinking about getting it. I'll still wait for opinions of people I trust, though, it's still Dungeon Siege, after all.
Hmm… You're right, the major people behind it like Tim Cain jumped off to other places.
Some dev quotes explaining some of the mechanics of DS 3:
Each character's stances or modes are completely different, and their abilities are also completely unique. No sharing. For example, Lucas has a Sword and Shield and Two-Handed Sword stance, and Anjali can shift between Human Form and Fire Form.
Your offensive Stances are a toggle, so for Lucas you just tap the Stance Switch button to change between using a Sword and Shield or a Two-Handed Sword. When you toggle your offensive stance, your X, Y and B buttons (on 360) change to abilities in that Stance - you have unique abilities in each stance. You also have a different basic attack combo in each stance.
When you hold down Block, you also enter Defensive Mode, and your Abilities are swapped for Defensive Abilities. Again, these are unique and class-specific, but they are always 30 second buffs - so heals, damage buffs, etc.
Given that context, I'll explain progression.
Each character has 3 progression "paths":
- Abilities - There are 9 abilities each character will learn over the course of the game. These are split up into 3 tiers. There are a few ability points scattered through the early and middle levels, and three ability tiers, but you DO earn enough ability points to buy each ability over the course of the game - the main customization here is what order you want to buy things in. However, the abilities themselves can be further customized to do pretty different things based on the Proficiencies you purchase for them.
- Proficiencies - Every ability has two different proficiencies you can buy for it. You can spend up to 5 points in a given ability, split between the two proficiencies however you want. The proficiencies can pretty radically alter how you use an ability - for instance, Anjali has a placed Ao E ability called "Aura of Immolation" in Fire Form.
By default, the Ability is just a light damage Ao E. The first proficiency, Fiery Presence, increases the damage output by 10% per rank. The second, Cauterize, causes it to heal any friendlies in addition to dealing damage. So, you can either choose to turn it into a deadly Ao E of... death, or use it as a nice healing option - which is especially fun to give to your AI companion or to use in co-op with your buddy.
So proficiencies actually pretty substantially change what you use the abilities for, and the fact that you can only spend 5 points and can't max out any ability means that you have to make some tough choices. You'll want to spend your Proficiencies in a way that best matches your playstyle.
- Talents -Each character has 9 Talents, with 5 ranks per Talent. These are passive improvements to the character that work across all of their abilities, or across multiple abilities. You only earn 30 talent points throughout the game, so you have to also make some tough decisions here, and buy talents that synergize well with your play style.
On top of all of that you also earn Deeds (which are permanent stat rewards) for completing certain objectives within the game, or making certain decisions, and of course you have gear which is a major form of both character advancement and customization. I'm actually really happy with the amount of RPG depth we were able to cram into it for an ARPG.
- There are no health potions. Health regeneration is handled via Defensive Abilities (each character has a heal-over-time defensive ability with customizable secondary effects) and health orbs dropped from enemies, sort of like God of War.
- You can block and/or dodge pretty much everything in the game. There are definitely some things that are not blockable, but they tend to be things like a Cyclops bringing the hurt with a giant hammer - i.e. pretty obvious. However, dodging works about 99% of the time to avoid things, but it's VERY hard to avoid everything, so you need to time your dodges well to avoid getting pinged by things in between dodges.
- Not only is it possible to do a 'perfect run', we even have some achievements that revolve around getting perfect (or near-perfect) runs.
- In the hardest difficulty mode, Hardcore, you absolutely HAVE to avoid as much damage as humanly possible, which makes the game very difficult but very fun if you like intense action combat. Playing through on Hardcore I definitely had some Demons' Souls-esque moments fighting some of the tougher bosses in the game. Of course, if you play on the other difficulty modes, it's nowhere near that hard, but that's why they're not Hardcore.
Original Something Awful link
edited 9th Mar '11 4:55:43 PM by ShadowScythe
Gameplay videos. They show co-op.
And.. a Gameplay video that shows the beginning of the game.
machinima hands on
Kinda sucks though that it releases during my exams, it'll be a while before I can actually play it.
Fuzzy Orange Doomsayer
This would go a long way towards making party building and stat point assignment actually fun.
That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful
Dungeon Siege III webcomic announced.
It seems to make the Wal-Mart pre-order bonus a bit less meaningful, but I'm glad they handled it this way.
New character: Katarina
Guns and magic combo? Looks fun, although I'm really interested in who the guy with the gauntlet (the last character to be revealed) is and what he does.
So far I'm probably going to play as Anjali but that gauntlet guy looks pretty interesting too.
Damn, both of my preferred classes in one? I think I know who I'm going to play as...
Delayed to late June
...Well, at least it now comes out after my exams.
I'm surprised by the rather positive response here considering how a lot of other fans on other sites (ie: Youtube and Giant Bomb) have responded more along the lines of They Changed It, Now It Sucks!.
....
Youtube is a hostile place, sincerely
http://steamcommunity.com/id/Xan-Xan/
Obsidian is a love it or hate it company- even for their more popular games like Fallout New Vegas. I think T Vtropes is generally more positive towards Obsidian than other communities, hence the more positive response.
EDIT: Aand the preorders are up on steam- $50 + DS 1 and 2. I wonder if LAN co-op is enabled for those. Also, seems like the PC drm is Steamworks.
edited 8th Apr '11 11:34:10 PM by ShadowScythe
Ding-ding! Going down...
Heh. Well, I love Obsidian — though this probably won't be a Chris Avellone game given that he's all tied up with New Veags DLC.
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It's a George Ziets' one though. Despite that, I admit, what I heard of the story so far doesn't exactly excite me though, but I'm willing to give it a chance.
Hopefully they'll give clarifying details on the co-op mode soon-ish, what we know about multiplayer right now is scarce at best.
Ding-ding! Going down...
So... Neverwinter Nights and Mask Of The Betrayer. (Though I'm not sure how much Mo B was Ziets and how much was Avellone.)
edited 9th Apr '11 12:26:05 AM by Nicknacks
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Mostly Ziets, Avellone, as far as I know, just wrote dialogue for Neverwinter 2. Really, I appreciate Avellone as much as anyone else, but he's not the only talented writer Obsidian has got. He hasn't even worked much on their latest projects, with the exception of the New Vegas DL Cs.
Ding-ding! Going down...
He wrote most of the companion dialogue for New Vegas too, right? And knowing the way he writes, he definitely was responsible for Scarlet Lake and Albatross from Alpha Protocol, I feel.
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Sad.... :(
Considering, that Mask of the Betrayer, had the best story, out of the all Neverwinter Nights titles, and I would consider it one of the best in the wRPGs in general, I don't think I have too many worries that George Ziets will somehow make the story suck. Quite the opposite.
edited 9th Apr '11 11:14:10 AM by Drakovicz
Has a compulsive editing and re-editing disorder.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
No, actually, I think he only wrote Cass out of the companions. He also wrote some of the key characters, like Legate Lanius, but for the most part, New Vegas wasn't his project, especially considering he came in like halfway through the development. I absolutely don't want to diss his work, he's pretty much my favorite videogame writer, but his big projects for Obsidian lately have been Alpha Protocol and the New Vegas DL Cs (Dead Money, in particular, was, as far as I know, written by him beginning to end).
Ding-ding! Going down...
Ah. I wasn't sure exactly what he had done.
(Though I was under the impression that a great deal of Mo B was his as well.)
All I'm interested in is working out who wrote what, not picking favourites. I'm looking forward to this, a lot.
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I've been trying to find out more about this game, surprisingly only came across it recently despite the fact that it's coming out within 2 months.
Admittedly, I never played the first two games, the reason I'm really looking forward to this is cause Obsidian is making it and after Alpha Protocol turned out to be great and New Vegas became my favourite game of last year I'm really looking forward to the story they come up with for this one.
Also it's on their own custom engine which looks really pretty and flashy.
Trailers and official site here
Previews from 1up
and Escapist
which contain additional screenshots and explanations of gameplay mechanics.
edited 7th Mar '11 3:01:55 PM by ShadowScythe