Interview Dungeon Siege expansion interview on PC.IGN

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna

<A href="http://pc.ign.com/">PC.IGN</a> has <A href="http://pc.ign.com/articles/427/427886p1.html">an interview</a> covering the upcoming expansion to <A href="http://www.dungeonsiege.com/index.shtml">Dungeon Siege</a>, called <i>Legends of Aranna</i>. Here's a bit on the improved tactical stuff:
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<blockquote><b>IGNPC: On the subject of party members, what new tactical options (formations, rules of engagement, etc.) are open to the players? Will we have to adjust our strategies from the last game to take on the new challenges? Will we have new team commands?
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Ian Davis:</b> The focus was on additional AI & UI options that streamline the playing process. My favorites are the modifications to the control-groups, the attack cursor, and the Voice-Over acknowledgements. We've modified the control-groups so that they don't just store the currently active slot, but they also remember which spells were in the active slots of the spellbook; this really opens up the breadth of spells for instant use, and I've found myself using a much wider variety of the spells.
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We also put in a hotkey which lets you click to attack the nearest enemy to your click, without fear that you'll miss on the click and send your party running into danger. It's a little thing, but it's sweet. The addition of voice-over acknowledgements for attacks and movement brings out the personality of your party members. On top of all that, there's tooltip improvements (showing damage per time period), the ability to redistribute needed potions amongst your party with a single click (mages getting the bulk of the mana potions, and warriors getting the bulk of the health potions), and lots more...</blockquote>
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Acknowledgement voice overs <i>never</i> get old!
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Spotted this on <a href="http://www.ve3d.com">VoodooExtreme</a>.
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[Binary]

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[Astromarine]

So this change is good eh? So we have now passed from a simple, mind-numbing point-and-click game to remove one half of the flimsy gameplay? Namely, the pointing? What is DS now, a "click" game?

God, how I hate this game and it's developers. Give me NWN any day. The game was horrid before, and they decided to use the expansion to *streamline* the gameplay? THERE WAS NOTHING THERE TO STREAMLINE

 

[Spazmo]

Well, this won't change much, really. In fact, that feature was essentially already there. In DS, you move into an area and your characters clear it out for you automatically. In this expansion, it's the same damn thing, except now it's an all-new feature.

 

[Sol Invictus]

DS a fucking stupid excuse of a graphics engine masquerading as a game.

 

[Voss]

Wait, wait.

There was gameplay?

When did they add that feature?

And the sad thing is all the time whathisname spent gibbering to press people about taking all the non-fun things out of RPGs and just leaving the really fun stuff.
Which says something about what some people consider fun.

just (number crunching + graphics) = screen saver!

 

[Araanor]

I like this. Divdiv had this too which was extremely useful. Wonder if Blizzard would consider adding this to their upcoming D2 v1.10 patch

Nah. Diablo you have to actually play.

 

[Volourn]

Question for those in charge. Why is DS being shown on this site? I thought this was a role-playing game site - both good, and bad (so, no telling me NWN sucks and sin't a REAL rpg just because you think it sucks; nor will I say MW doens't belong here even though I think it sucks as both of those ARE rpgs).

I mean, is DS really a rpg ecsape in the general terms of playing a character (which even Mario fits in a way)?.


Just a curious question...

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Because I like to make fun of it, Volourn. However, things I don't post would be:

• MMORPGs
• Console RPGs (With the possible exception of gold box game ports)
• RTS games disguised as RPGs because the units have level ups

And now back to calling Dungeon Siege a slightly interactive screensaver.

 

[Volourn]

Oh, I see. Seems reasonable.

Anyways, they are adding 70 spells. That's about the only positive thing I can say about this 'expansion'. Other than that we know it will have good graphics.

 

[Binary]

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[Astromarine]

No. A thousand times no. Nothing is fun about this game. As a matter of fact, I had to remove the cd from the binder where my other games are, it's presence was causing a negative fun nexus, and sucking the fun out of every other game.

Look, what the hell is wrong with you? We argued all our lives because you were IMHO too demanding in your tastes. They you go and forgive DS the fact that *there is no game in there* because it's relatively soothing watching a fantasy-style screensaver?

 

[Binary]

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[Voss]

I think your picture leads something to be desired.
It should be something like this:

planescape -------Diablo ii ------------------------------ frogger
fallout ------------ deus ex ------------------------------dungeon siege
ultima IV-----------fallout tactics ------------------------Civ III
|________| ------ |______________| ------------------- |___________|
things that ----- things that have aspects --------------- things that aren't RPGs
are RPGs ------ of RPGs (usually just a few) --------- * at all *

the point is, it isn't really a matter of balance between arcade and adventure, those are categories of their own and don't necessarily have anything to do with RPGs

 

[Astromarine]

An Arcade RPG, to be good, has to have different criteria from a story based RPG. I'm not aruging that DS is an arcade RPG, I'm arguing it is a horrible one, because it fails at the necessary criteria to succeed as an Arcade RPG.

Character advancement is not fun. I prefer training-based skill advancement to point-based, but NOT WHEN THERE?S ONLY 3 SKILLS.
Combat is not fun. It is boring, repetitive, too automated, utter crap. There *IS* no combat, there's attack animations.

Without these two elements, I do not *care* where in your too-simplistic RPG scale DS fits. The point is that in the scale

Good----------------------Average----------------------Bad

DS is about---------------------------------------------------------------here

 

[Binary]

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[Binary]

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[Astromarine]

Combat is not fun. It is boring, repetitive, too automated, utter crap. There *IS* no combat, there's attack animations.

Have you ever screamed at your monitor while playing Diablo 2 because:

a) The server you were playing on had a lag wave while your char was surrounded, and you knew he'd die cause you couldn't command him?
b) You had failed to click on a monster and the char dumbly ran to a spot near said monster, read to be helplessly slaughtered?

And about DS having no combat but "attack animations", I have only two words to reply: Nova Sorceresses. (at least there aren't these aberrations of nature on DS )

Those are minor nitpicks. You are basically saying that DS's combat is good because a) there's no lag and b) you don't have to actually be accurate. The first point is irrelevant to the quality of combat, and the second one is laughable. Not to mention that D2 has the Shift key if you want to avoid running where you shouldn't.
Look, it all boils down to this: you have said (and I agree) that DS should live or die by it's combat, because that's what the game is designed to *do*. But what is it that the player has to do in combat, really? In D2 he has to choose a build, assign points correctly, learn what to use against what monsters, be accurate and fast-handed, etc. It's even harder to play PvP. What skill *as a player* can you bring to playing DS that makes your character better? Whether a combat system is Turn based or RT, it has to be rewarding. You have to have *some* input into the game that affects the outcome, whether that is tactical input in TB or reflexive input in RT. DS has *none*.

I am not saying DS is better from D2 -- far from it. D2 is a much better game, but do not dismiss DS as being simply "crap" just because in its genre (the arcade RPG) you have ONE contender which is an excellent game!

No, I dismiss it because there is nothing I as a player can do to affect the outcome of the game. I am reminded of those horror stories of people leaving the game on in MP while they went to have dinner only to return to a character several levels more powerful and several messages from party mates complimenting him on his skills.

Without these two elements, I do not *care* where in your too-simplistic RPG scale DS fits. The point is that in the scale

Good----------------------Average----------------------Bad

DS is about---------------------------------------------------------------here

I do not have enough slashes to say where I'd put PST then.

Yeah, but that's because you saw where the nameless one woke up and promptly uninstalled the game
PST at least made you *care* what happened next to the Nameless one, and be curious about what other paths there were. That's the makings of a great game, when you care enough to endure a less-than-stellar combat (another example is Arcanum)

 

[Volourn]

Wooo... Did someone say stats had no effect on PST? WOWSERS! Soemone forgot to play the game...

 

[triCritical]

So if DS is not a RPG, then PST is a point'n'click adventure game.

I agree with that.

Still, I think the combat oriented RPG can be a very good RPG. Some of the things that bring Diablo down are lack of linearity, and twitch based combat. A lot of old school hack and slash gamers don't really like those attributes.

As with DS, its a game that essentially plays itself in the most paramount way possible. Before you call it a CRPG, you first need to justify if its even a game. :shock:

 

[Binary]

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[Astromarine]

Don't cop out. Tell me what in the DS combat makes it interesting. Tell me what the player can do to affect the play of the game. Tell me anything besides "well, there's no lag".

 

[Araanor]

Interactivity:

REAL LIEF------------------------------------RPGs---------------Dungeon Siege---Screensaver

 

[Voss]

I think your picture leads something to be desired.
It should be something like this:

planescape -------Diablo ii ------------------------------ frogger
fallout ------------ deus ex ------------------------------dungeon siege
ultima IV-----------fallout tactics ------------------------Civ III
|________| ------ |______________| ------------------- |___________|
things that ----- things that have aspects --------------- things that aren't RPGs
are RPGs ------ of RPGs (usually just a few) --------- * at all *

the point is, it isn't really a matter of balance between arcade and adventure, those are categories of their own and don't necessarily have anything to do with RPGs

You are completely wrong. Wizardry 1 is one of the first RPGs ever and yet it's SO DIFFERENT from Ultima 4. Will you say that one (no matter which one) is a RPG and the other isn't?

They're both RPGs, one story-oriented, the other combat-oriented, but they're both still RPGs. As is Diablo 2. As is Dungeon Siege, like it or not.

Oh and good example of putting PST in that list. What makes it an RPG? The stats had little to no influence on the game, and the combats were slightly worse than its brother's Baldur's "oh no, not another goblin" Gate.

So if DS is not a RPG, then PST is a point'n'click adventure game.

Actually...I would say that WIz 1 isn't an RPG. It was one of the first game to try to do a PnP style game on a computer, and it deserves a lot of credit for what it did, especially considering when it did it, but it is not an RPG.
The story is frankly irrelevant, and the goal of the game is simply to hack to the bottom of the dungeon...just like the point of DS is to hack through to the other end of the mountain pass (or whatever)

For me a role playing game involves adopting a role in the game world, and having real effects on your character, the events and other individuals (characters), in that world, based on choices you make while playing. With choice being paramount, and how you do something is as important as what you do. and your choices should obviously affect later choices as well.

Thats why planescape, u4 and fallout are on that list, and
d2, deus ex and DS are definitely not- there aren't any real choices to make (deus ex tries to hide that fact, but its there) stats, leveling up and all that other stuff is a convenient tool to add to progression of a character, but it is not the core (or even necessary) for an RPG, neither is action or excitement (though all these things might make a game more fun) Hell, the Sims is more of an RPG than DS is, but it isn't something I'd like to play.

this is also why I dislike NWN so much... as an RPG it fails in a number of major areas- the character has no real effect on the gameworld. Sure you solve the quest, but you don't affect other things- you can't talk aribeth into not doing crazy crap, you can't point out the obviously evil villain in chapter 1... you can't really do anything but kill and fetch.
Its also why I have a lower opinion of IWD2...the real RPG aspects are sidelined, and not particularly important.

Whether the industry and publishers choose to try to use the term RPG to cover other things is frankly irrelevant to me. It just means they're wrong. And if that seems arrogant, well, it is, but for me, games that fall under my definition of RPG are much more fun than games called RPGs that are just repetitive killing with stats, so its absolutely necessary for me to distinguish between them.

 

[Elwro]

I call an "adventure" RPG a RPG that is strongly based on the storyline and plot and cares too little about fighting (Quest for Glory is a good example here).

Quest for Glory had a big deal of fighting. Despite it looking quite like a true RPG game, I sometimes felt as if I was playing a VERY improved King's Quest {or other famous Sierra games} with fights added.

Oh and good example of putting PST in that list. What makes it an RPG? The stats had little to no influence on the game, and the combats were slightly worse than its brother's Baldur's "oh no, not another goblin" Gate.

1. Stats had a very strong influence on the game; more than in any other IE games. Just read some of the following FAQ: http://faqs.ign.com/articles/372/372498p1.html to find out (it's spoilerish of course).
2. I don't understand why do you say the fights were worse than in BG. Well, they were different - they weren't the most frequent thing in the game and prevalent source of XP; they were balanced so that you could have fun playing any class. Try to play BGI as a mage. I tried and it just wasn't fun. BG was made with PC-munchkins in mind. In PS:T things are very different.

But of course, I can understand that someone doesn't like the Planescape setting itself.

And I can't say much about DS because the game bored me after 1-2 hours. I can only admit that the graphics were good.

EDIT: grammar.