Preview Dungeon Siege 2 gawkings at GameBanshee

Tags: Dungeon Siege 2

<a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com/">GameBanshee</a> has written a nice, long <a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com/previews/dungeonsiegeii2-1.php">preview</a> of <A href="http://www.gaspowered.com/ds2/news.php">Dungeon Siege 2</a> packing in as much detail, previously known or not, as possible. Here's a bit about races in the game:
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<blockquote>The four races of Dungeon Siege II are the human, the dryad, the elf, and the half-giant. The races have different sizes, which helps to differentiate between characters, and they also get some bonuses and penalties. For example, the half-giant, who can only be male, gets +6 strength, -2 dexterity, 2 points in the “fortitude” melee specialization, and the ability to regenerate health over time. Dryads, meanwhile, can only be female, but they get -2 strength, +4 dexterity, +2 intelligence, points in the “dodge” and “natural bond” specializations, and a 10% resistance to death magic.</blockquote>
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Wow, that's a nice trade for only losing two strength or two dexterity.
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.bluesnews.com">Blue's News</A>

 

Ability to regenerate health over time? Didn't everyone have that in Dungeon Siege?

 

No, that was "automatic potion use".

 

notice that dialog options were not even mentioned once in the preview?

i doubt not that it'll be in, but i do not think it'll be featured prominently.

so, it's essentially the same linear dungeon romp. sigh.

 

Did you fucking expect it to be anything else? What, were you anxiously awaiting DS2 to be the next Fallout? What the fuck is wrong with you?

 

Bah. Another reason to hate on DS. They add elves as a race; but no dwarves.

FUCK THEM! FUCK THEM TO HELL! FUCK THEM ALL!

 

No dwarfs

FUCK 'EM ALL

 

I think the coolest character I've ever made was a dwarf in Arcanum, who had 14 intelligence, but had the "idiot savant" speech so he still spoke like an idiot. I gve him a flame thrower, too.

 

My only dwarf character wielded a flamethrower and the Iron Clan gear. Smart, deadly in combat, ugly as hell, but had everyone's kneecaps at his mercy.

 

I also like the Dwarfs in Divine Divinity, too bad you couldn't play as them.

 

i didn't have my coffee this morning.

Well, they can have open space for exploration instead of the on-rail trails. That would make the experience more varied, and spice up the gameplay somewhat.

 

The thing is, they don't really care because they know that the game will sell millions simply by name recognition alone.

 

Errrm, haven't you guys tried out the public beta?

Basically, they've ripped off every single idea from D2, but it sure as hell is alot more fun than the first game.
Here's a quick run down of things they copied from D2 that I can think of off hand.
Half-giant is Barb.
Skill trees
Set items
Pets == henchmen in D2 (the pets also get auras like the henchman had)
Enchantable items == socketable items
Added throwing weapons (and skills)
Dual wielding
Potions now heal gradually like they do in D2
Added resistences to both monsters and PCs (elemental, magical, and physical)
Alot of weapon attributes are lifted from D2: like now there's mana/life leech figured as percentages, +to skills, +to magic find/gold, +to regen, increased attack speed... etc. you get the idea...
Combat has been sped up alot - you do alot more damage than in D1 and your PC moves faster. Monsters do more damage too it seems so there's more running away

Well, I could go on, but I think you get the idea. It's pretty much a carbon copy of D2 set in the Dungeon Siege universe. My big complaint from playing the beta is they make you run around town way too much and do all these stupid quests when all you really want to do is go kill stuff. The voice acting is totally gaytarded too. I don't understand how the hell you can put that much work into a graphics engine and game content and then get voice acting that atrocious.
In the end though, I have to say I had alot more fun than with DS1 (but then I missed half of DS1 because I let my gold fish play it for me).

 

But it is meant to be more of a role-playing experience, isn't it? Hence the quests.

Or are the quests pretty pathetic and only supply a thin RPG-veneer over what is (apparently) a D2 clone?

 

D2 clone that's more fun than D2? Heh, I totally dig that concept. Looks like I might be getting this one after all.

 

From what I've seen of the story so far, it seems pretty uninspired IMO.
You know, I really wouldn't mind going around talking to people and watching the cut scenes if the dialogs were better written and the voice acting wasn't so bad. As it stands though, most of the characters are just annoying and none of them stick out or seem that interesting. Also, there are dialog options, but the game is so linear (so far) that they don't ammount to anything. Since the game is totally combat centric and that's all you get XP for, would you really want to take a dialog option that lets you move past monsters peacefully (without any apparent reward that I could see), when it's just as easy to insult them and crack them on the head and get the XP?
Like I said though, the combat is quite fun and it should make the game worthwhile, but if you're looking for interesting NPCs and dialog options like in Arcanum or something, it aint gonna be here.

 

I think you misread. He said that Dungeon Siege 2 was more fun than Dungeon Siege, not Diablo 2.