Console side it shouldn't be much of an issue, but PC-side apart from Diablo 3 there's also Torchlight 2, Grim Dawn, and probably a couple of others I'm forgetting.
The third game in the beloved Dungeon Siege series is well underway by Obsidian Entertainment, slated for a 2011 launch on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows PCs.
To learn more about the upcoming action-role-playing game (RPG) hybrid, we caught up with Nathan Davis, producer on the game at Obsidian Entertainment.
"When you fire up a franchise after a few years, you are blessed twice over," begins Davis. "This may seem counterintuitive to some, but we've found a lot of benefits to doing so [as] we get a rich world and gameplay tradition to start from and we get the freedom to make the game truly our own."
"When we talk about Dungeon Siege III, we like to talk about how we are bringing the series into this generation of platforms and specific action gameplay mechanics," adds Davis. "But here are some facts about Dungeon Siege III that have nothing to do with that stuff!"
East meets west. Dungeon Siege III is the first Western-style role-playing game to come out of Square Enix. At Obsidian, we are all big fans of Square's RPG library and it's an immense privilege for us to be work on this pioneering project with them.
Start your engine. This game is the first to use Obsidian's proprietary Onyx game engine. Dungeon Siege III is a perfect opportunity for us to show what we can do with our own internal technology. While Onyx is fine tuned for RPG production, it also is graphically powerful and was built with our art director's vision in mind.
Power of ancestry. When you start a new game, you can choose to play as one of the descendants of The Farmer, the hero of the first Dungeon Siege. There are a number of nods to the original game throughout Dungeon Siege III, including the opportunity to adventure in a memorial built in honor of the player's character in the first game.
Ehb and flow. Our Creative Lead Designer, George Ziets, created a large Ehb Sourcebook (reminiscent of the Forgotten Realms Gazetteers for all of you Dungeons & Dragons nerds out there. You know who you are!). He took all the lore that he could find from the first two games and advanced the land of Ehb over 150 years. He built this tome in consultation with [series creator] Chris Taylor who was responsible for the original Dungeon Siege games. Richness of story and setting has always been a hallmark of Obsidian games and Dungeon Siege III is no exception.
Sounding off. Barry Dennon, the voice of the Venerable Odo, the player's mentor, was also the voice of Chamberlain in Dark Crystal. We are excited to have him on board and have co-opted him into being the voice of our narrator where appropriate. In case you are rusty on your Dark Crystal history, this picture may help.
Loot, there it is. In Dungeon Siege III, players will have access to over 15,000 pieces of equipment. In an action RPG like ours, extensive loot is key, and we strive to make sure that players will get the pleasure of finding items throughout the entire game.
I'm really wondering how it is possible to do this:
Ehb and flow. Our Creative Lead Designer, George Ziets, created a large Ehb Sourcebook (reminiscent of the Forgotten Realms Gazetteers for all of you Dungeons & Dragons nerds out there. You know who you are!). He took all the lore that he could find from the first two games and advanced the land of Ehb over 150 years. He built this tome in consultation with [series creator] Chris Taylor who was responsible for the original Dungeon Siege games. Richness of story and setting has always been a hallmark of Obsidian games and Dungeon Siege III is no exception.
-PVP modes are apperently planned
-Looks great on consoles. Even better on PC. (Better Shadows/Textures)
-The Looks give a great atmosphere
-The Dialog system isn't laid out in good vs. evil but rather in tradition vs. progressive thinking. (Which leads probably in how the new legion will be structured? My guess)
-Companions can leave you if they are unhappy. If they are happy you get boni.
-Classes are balanced to each other in their use to ensure quality teamwork in co-op.
-There is no information on how many classes.
-Talents aren't many per class but they are deeply upgradable.
-PVP modes are apperently planned
-Looks great on consoles. Even better on PC. (Better Shadows/Textures)
-The Looks give a great atmosphere -The Dialog system isn't laid out in good vs. evil but rather in tradition vs. progressive thinking. (Which leads probably in how the new legion will be structured? My guess)
-Companions can leave you if they are unhappy. If they are happy you get boni.
-Classes are balanced to each other in their use to ensure quality teamwork in co-op.
-There is no information on how many classes.
-Talents aren't many per class but they are deeply upgradable.
Additional mag preview impressions:
-Voice actors are great
-Previewer is super-excited, after playing the demo he can't wait to play more of the game. (He was pessimistic before he saw it in action) -The only bug in 3 hour-long alpha build was one small blinking texture. The animations are smooth, the engine is beautiful.
-There was only one playable character for the demo, there are more however - with different starting locations and different prologues.
Was it a conscious effort to get Square Enix's involvement on the narrative? Because they did SupCom, didn't they?
CT: They have a desire to drive the story agenda, so when we're sitting there looking at how we're going to do production you have to look at how much you're going to put into each bit of the game. You only have so many resources to work with. So what I do is start with gameplay mechanics, I'm guilty of spending disproportionate amounts of the budget on spending mechanics, then I do graphics, then something else and eventually get down to story.
They take the story and say 'you're going to spend a lot more on the story than you typically would if you were left to your own devices', that's where their core influence operates.
NC: We've been guilty of spending too much time on story, that's where it's helpful to have Square and Chris' feedback. It's something that has been very important to us on Dungeon Siege, story is important but it can't drive everything. Core game mechanics need to be important for a successful Dungeon Siege game. We need to have controls that work well, the visceral moment to moment gameplay in Dungeon Siege are so important so the controls need to be great.
It's the opposite thing for us with Dungeon Siege, we're trying to get the core mechanics perfect, but obviously story is still important to us.
The controls in Dungeon Siege 3 seemed to have been translated onto the controller quite well; can you talk a little about that?
NC: One of the things that helps is that our project director and I probably play as many games on consoles as on PC. So I looked at Dungeon Siege 1 on PC and thought how can I take that game, Secret of Mana and Legend of Zelda and make that work.
I knew that was the right direction, the game needed to play like a mix of Dungeon Siege and Dark Alliance, the console beat-em-up hybrid games. That is where I think most of the direction came from, they work really well altogether and that's one of the things I'm happiest about.
What other console games did you draw influence from?
NC: I already mentioned Secret of Mana and Legend of Zelda, there's also Devil May Cry, which was a huge influence. The game doesn't play like Devil May Cry but looking at how it deals with certain things... I have tons of reference video from Devil May Cry up that we've been looking at just to see how they handle certain mechanics.
God of War is obviously big, even Ninja Gaiden, although it's a hardcore action game, the way they handle certain things like blocking that we're trying to bring into the game. There are actually a lot of influences on the game.
The way they keep referencing action games like DMC and Ninja Gaiden certainly has me interested. It's not going to be as in-depth as those but I'm taking it to mean the combat's going to be way more direct and involving.
But seriously, the story stuff? I have more faith in that because of the Obsidian aspect, not the Squeenix aspect.
But seriously, the story stuff? I have more faith in that because of the Obsidian aspect, not the Squeenix aspect.
It's good to hear that they're working on getting the game right first, though. No nonsense like what happened with AP.
Sheep on
0
Options
Zxerolfor the smaller pieces, my shovel wouldn't doso i took off my boot and used my shoeRegistered Userregular
edited January 2011
S-E having an influence on the story isn't something I'd brag about, even if we just considered Taylor's last game (Supcom 2), where they were bragging on how S-E's involvement allowed them to do a deeper, more emotional character story.
The story in that game was the most unremarkable slop I've played last year.
S-E having an influence on the story isn't something I'd brag about, even if we just considered Taylor's last game (Supcom 2), where they were bragging on how S-E's involvement allowed them to do a deeper, more emotional character story.
The story in that game was the most unremarkable slop I've played last year.
It was pretty bad.
I don't know how much input Squeenix had on the story in SupCom 2, but I remember one preview they did that pretty much solidified to me that the story was going to be crap. As part of the preview they went up to one guy and said "Hey, this is Dave (or whatever, can't remember his name), and he's doing interface work on the 360 port. He also writes all of our in-mission dialogue."
Ugh. Constantly harping about how awesome your story's going to be, and you don't have a dedicated writer, you've just fobbed that all off to some programmer as an ancillary task. Yeah that's going to work out really well.
EDIT: Reading through that preview, they cover a fair amount of interesting stuff on the side about the wider industry in general, things like what MS is up to, and motion control. Apparently all of Obsidian's games have always sold better in Europe. Wouldn't have thought that at first.
But seriously, the story stuff? I have more faith in that because of the Obsidian aspect, not the Squeenix aspect.
It's good to hear that they're working on getting the game right first, though. No nonsense like what happened with AP.
Their new teamstructure with having one guy beeing Lead Developer and another guy focusing on creative design/narrative is really playing out better. (MOTB, New Vegas and DS3)
But seriously, the story stuff? I have more faith in that because of the Obsidian aspect, not the Squeenix aspect.
It's good to hear that they're working on getting the game right first, though. No nonsense like what happened with AP.
Their new teamstructure with having one guy beeing Lead Developer and another guy focusing on creative design/narrative is really playing out better. (MOTB, New Vegas and DS3)
Alpha Protocol had the project lead leave part way through didn't it? And then they had to have a massive re-work of the game or something?
But seriously, the story stuff? I have more faith in that because of the Obsidian aspect, not the Squeenix aspect.
It's good to hear that they're working on getting the game right first, though. No nonsense like what happened with AP.
Their new teamstructure with having one guy beeing Lead Developer and another guy focusing on creative design/narrative is really playing out better. (MOTB, New Vegas and DS3)
Alpha Protocol had the project lead leave part way through didn't it? And then they had to have a massive re-work of the game or something?
It's too big a mess to make sense of it actually (I've been wrong before) but basically yeah (Also not the project lead but the lead dsigner). There was also Development Hell and some other Designers left before the end (fired due to costs). There were also multiple variations of the script and the one that was first used wasn't used. You can read up about most of it on the AP thread in the SA forums.
I think it says much that Brian Mitsoda went full indie development after he left though. Chris Avellones (who didn't really work on it till after Aliens was cancelled) regret about the game was "Get it right the first time".
Obsidian Studios turns its writing chops toward an unfamiliar genre and setting: the cutthroat world of Dungeon Siege.
I gaze down on the blaze that’s consuming my ancestral home, the Montbarron estate. My eyes redden, not because I mourn the loss of my childhood home, but rather out of fear for the future, for the sons and daughters of the 10th Legion who stood between the people of Ehb and the warlord Jeyne Kessynder are likely dead. I go inside in search of clues and survivors among the burning timber.
Obsidian Studios sets a markedly different tone with the opening of Dungeon Siege III than the one Gas Powered Games established in the first two installments of its action-RPG. In Dungeon Siege II, you start as a warrior pressed into duty for the dark warlord Valdis as he assaults the dyrads, fighting a host of sylvan creatures. In Dungeon Siege III, your character has a tangible past, a deeper connection to the story than just “kill the big bad” objective of the previous game. This shift in narrative focus shouldn’t be surprising; while they did develop a great deal of lore, Gas Powered Games’ head Chris Taylor knows that, at its heart, his studio is best suited for making real-time-strategy games such as Supreme Commander 2.
Enter Obsidian. The RPG house arising like a phoenix from the ashes of the acclaimed Black Isle Studios (Fallout, Planescape: Torment), Obsidian has a welldeserved reputation for crafting engaging stories. Set some 30 years after the player’s hero destroys the threat of the Dark Wizards in Dungeon Siege II, the third game in the series sees the realm of Ehb embroiled in a civil war brought about by the death of its king and the rise of a cruel, power-hungry warlord. Its story opens with the dramatic and almost total destruction of the 10th Legion, the realm’s traditional protectors, and this is where the player takes up the tale. In my hour-long alpha-build demo, I was Lucas, the son of the Legion’s final grandmaster and one of the Children of the Legion. He’s a “Guardian” (aka a tank class, joining the Fire Archon as the two classes known so far) who attempts to meet with other Children of the Legion at his ancestral estate and finds himself running from Lescanzi mercenaries (think stylish buccaneers in 18th century long coats and with muskets) and through the Rukkenvahl (the Valley of the Ravens). George Ziets is the creative lead designer for Dungeon Siege III and one of the writing gurus for Obsidian. Known as the scribe behind the fantastic tale in Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer for PC (considered one of the best RPG stories since Planescape: Torment), Ziets faced a double challenge with Dungeon Siege III: creating an extensive bible from the lore established by Taylor and his staff at Gas Powered Games, and working in an unfamiliar genre, the action-RPG. One turned out to be easier than the other.
“The Dungeon Siege universe actually has more background fiction than is commonly known. Granted, it doesn’t have piles of sourcebooks, but it does have a fair amount of history that hasn’t been exposed to fans,” Ziets says. “I was also permitted to expand upon the existing material, and I wrote a 100-page sourcebook of my own, describing the kingdom of Ehb in the present day. That gave the team a lot of material to draw upon. So I wouldn’t say that narrative design in the Dungeon Siege world was especially difficult.
“The genre was a little more challenging, at least for me. Since we were making an action-RPG, we had to strike a balance between story and action gameplay, and it took a little experimentation to get it right. I think you’ll still find a lot of narrative depth in Dungeon Siege III, but players who aren’t as interested in the story, and just want to go kill stuff, should find it easier to cut to the chase and get back into the action.” Combat in Dungeon Siege III benefits from the advancements in the action-RPG genre. Instead of static, rather boring attack routines, your character has two stances from which to batter foes (my Guardian has a one-handed and a two-handed stance). Extra flourishes, such as finishing foes with leaping stabs (they are all visual, though; as in Dragon Age, these don’t grant an added combat bonus), jazz up the combat.
Green orbs regenerate health, but at this time, only combat regenerates your “force” (think stamina or mana points). Obsidian Producer Greg Lunn says force orbs are a topic in testing. But I never lacked for force as I hacked my way through Lescanzi; the only time I did was against a witch, the boss of the cave level, and she raised enough skeletons that I usually found something to hit a few times to help replenish my force. While I didn’t get much loot as I massacred my way through Lescanzi, treasure remains an important aspect of Dungeon Siege III. It’s tied to your level and the level of the surrounding area and comes in four tiers (a standard design of the genre). And in this romp, your character doesn’t have an item limit; they can tromp around with so many items that they’re a virtual Costco on feet. This also means the pack mule, reviled by some Dungeon Siege gamers is gone.
After fleeing through the Rukkenvahl and meeting with Odo, the lone survivor of the 10th Legion, I find little help in Raven’s Rill, a town overrun by the Lescanzi. One brave woman tells me to meet her sister, Leona, in a network of caves. Leona informs me that the Lescanzi are holding one or more survivors here. She also warns me the mercs have witches with them. After fighting through the caves, I find a cage guarded by a host of Lescanzi and some witches. I prepare my blade and dive in as the witches hurl magical energy and raise skeletons from the earth. But my blade proves stronger, cleaving through the final witch. I release the last survivor, Anjali, Odo’s ward—a Fire Archon, judging from her foreign look!— and, I hope, my new companion in stopping Jeyne Kessynder....
One of the big changes to combat in Dungeon Siege III is limited interaction with your surroundings. Chasms riddle the caves, and a well-timed shield bash or blade rush sends one of a crowd of Lescanzi regulars over the side. The only time I didn’t encounter a human enemy was when the witches raised undead. The lack of monstrous boogeymen, at least through the hour I played through, is another narrative choice. “That decision arose naturally from the identity of our villain, at the beginning of the game. She isn’t the sort of person who’d recruit an army of crazy orcs. She’s been sent to wipe out the Legion...and by extension, the player,” Ziets says. “Another good thing about human enemies—you can bargain with them. And these particular enemies have an important connection to one of our player-characters.”
We’ll see how well Obsidian handles the dual challenge of narrative and the action- RPG when Dungeon Siege III comes out in the spring.
Only if they bother implementing an interface that can take advantage of it correctly. And to be honest, I'm not holding my breath that Obsidian will.
Apparently, they exactly did that. At least the german PC Games magazine said they did and that it controls just fine. On pc it uses the typical hotkey + mouse combination.
C2B on
0
Options
Zxerolfor the smaller pieces, my shovel wouldn't doso i took off my boot and used my shoeRegistered Userregular
If nothing else, I'm interested in seeing if a modding community springs up around DS3. Granted it's a completely different engine, but there are people that remade entire Ultima games in Dungeon Siege 1.
-Companions can leave you if they are unhappy. If they are happy you get boni.
boni? Is that a term for sex scene or something?
I'm on the fence, for this game. More leaning towards a no for the time being; because I'm skeptical of their possible bugs (Fallout New Vegas). But if I were to buy it, probably the PC version (chance of mods) and possibility of being able to chat.
I remember DS1, I should have created a t-shirt that says "I ran halfway around the world and all I got was this lousy bag on my head."
-Companions can leave you if they are unhappy. If they are happy you get boni.
boni? Is that a term for sex scene or something?
I'm on the fence, for this game. More leaning towards a no for the time being; because I'm skeptical of their possible bugs (Fallout New Vegas). But if I were to buy it, probably the PC version (chance of mods) and possibility of being able to chat.
I remember DS1, I should have created a t-shirt that says "I ran halfway around the world and all I got was this lousy bag on my head."
Sorry, fell back to my native tongue there. It will grant perks or something I assume.
Apart from all three beeing pretty generic fanatsy (though Tamriels actually pretty cool. Moreso the lore version than the Oblivion one) there is like no real common feature.
I'm still not sure which platform to buy this on. What about everyone else? PC? 360? PS3?
360 so I can avoid the click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*
Posts
buh???
Mad props to Ziets. Can't have been easy.
So,
-PVP modes are apperently planned
-Looks great on consoles. Even better on PC. (Better Shadows/Textures)
-The Looks give a great atmosphere
-The Dialog system isn't laid out in good vs. evil but rather in tradition vs. progressive thinking. (Which leads probably in how the new legion will be structured? My guess)
-Companions can leave you if they are unhappy. If they are happy you get boni.
-Classes are balanced to each other in their use to ensure quality teamwork in co-op.
-There is no information on how many classes.
-Talents aren't many per class but they are deeply upgradable.
Additional mag preview impressions:
-Voice actors are great
-Previewer is super-excited, after playing the demo he can't wait to play more of the game. (He was pessimistic before he saw it in action)
-The only bug in 3 hour-long alpha build was one small blinking texture. The animations are smooth, the engine is beautiful.
-There was only one playable character for the demo, there are more however - with different starting locations and different prologues.
[/joke(slightly bitter)].
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=282223
But seriously, the story stuff? I have more faith in that because of the Obsidian aspect, not the Squeenix aspect.
It's good to hear that they're working on getting the game right first, though. No nonsense like what happened with AP.
The story in that game was the most unremarkable slop I've played last year.
It was pretty bad.
I don't know how much input Squeenix had on the story in SupCom 2, but I remember one preview they did that pretty much solidified to me that the story was going to be crap. As part of the preview they went up to one guy and said "Hey, this is Dave (or whatever, can't remember his name), and he's doing interface work on the 360 port. He also writes all of our in-mission dialogue."
Ugh. Constantly harping about how awesome your story's going to be, and you don't have a dedicated writer, you've just fobbed that all off to some programmer as an ancillary task. Yeah that's going to work out really well.
EDIT: Reading through that preview, they cover a fair amount of interesting stuff on the side about the wider industry in general, things like what MS is up to, and motion control. Apparently all of Obsidian's games have always sold better in Europe. Wouldn't have thought that at first.
Their new teamstructure with having one guy beeing Lead Developer and another guy focusing on creative design/narrative is really playing out better. (MOTB, New Vegas and DS3)
Alpha Protocol had the project lead leave part way through didn't it? And then they had to have a massive re-work of the game or something?
It's too big a mess to make sense of it actually (I've been wrong before) but basically yeah (Also not the project lead but the lead dsigner). There was also Development Hell and some other Designers left before the end (fired due to costs). There were also multiple variations of the script and the one that was first used wasn't used. You can read up about most of it on the AP thread in the SA forums.
I think it says much that Brian Mitsoda went full indie development after he left though. Chris Avellones (who didn't really work on it till after Aliens was cancelled) regret about the game was "Get it right the first time".
I still love AP though.
http://www.idg-entertainment.com/article/previews/217827/dungeon-siege-iii/
The one that has the least bugs. Seriously though, I think its better suited for consoles.
Also the game looks really, really bad on screenshots compared to when its actually in motion.
Say what? Mouse control would like to have a word with you. And besides, we all know it's gonna look better on a pc anyway.
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
Apparently, they exactly did that. At least the german PC Games magazine said they did and that it controls just fine. On pc it uses the typical hotkey + mouse combination.
If nothing else, I'm interested in seeing if a modding community springs up around DS3. Granted it's a completely different engine, but there are people that remade entire Ultima games in Dungeon Siege 1.
boni? Is that a term for sex scene or something?
I'm on the fence, for this game. More leaning towards a no for the time being; because I'm skeptical of their possible bugs (Fallout New Vegas). But if I were to buy it, probably the PC version (chance of mods) and possibility of being able to chat.
I remember DS1, I should have created a t-shirt that says "I ran halfway around the world and all I got was this lousy bag on my head."
Sorry, fell back to my native tongue there. It will grant perks or something I assume.
Tamriel.
Ehb.
One of these is not like the other.
Shitty Tumblr:lighthouse1138.tumblr.com
Yeah, that.....
Totally doesn't make any sense. At all.
Apart from all three beeing pretty generic fanatsy (though Tamriels actually pretty cool. Moreso the lore version than the Oblivion one) there is like no real common feature.
Thedas is, seriously, the absolute best name for a world in the entire history of everything.
I
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
I know! That's why it's so cool.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
360 so I can avoid the click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*click*
I just want the fucking thing to come out. I can't think of a game I'm more excited for. And only, only because it's a loot whore game.
Loot games are pretty boss anyway. Hell, I even really liked Too Human.
2 new Screenshots
-Linear at beginning. Opens up later with a lot of sidequests.