Development Info Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna dev diary #2 at RPGVault

[Spazmo]

Tags: Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna; Gas Powered Games

<A HREF="http://rpgvault.ign.com" target="_blank">RPG Vault</a> stole into the private diary of the expansion's lead programmer, <b>Tara Teich</b> to discuss the various new options for spellcasting characters in <a href=http://www.microsoft.com/games/pc/dsloa.aspx>DS:LoA</a>.
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<blockquote><b>Ph4t L3wt</b>
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We wanted to make sure that mages had just as much gear to choose from as melee characters, so we designed a large chunk of the new content in Legends of Aranna just for them. There are new types of shields on the island called Wards. While they have little inherent defense, they are always imbued with magical attributes especially for mages. Sky Wards, Blood Wards, Rainbow Wards, and Sun Wards require high intelligence to use, just like staffs with similar imbuements.
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New headgear follows a similar pattern. Headbands, crowns and visors don't offer a whole lot of protection. A normally equipped nature mage might look like dinner to a Droc Superior, but a Mystical Zaurask Crown of the Fox just might make the difference between a tombstone over your portrait and a dead Droc.
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There's even full body armor, articulated or mechanized, which requires a high intelligence to equip due to its complexity, but is light enough for characters with low strength to use. It's extremely satisfying scavenging the battlefield after a big battle, because there's almost always something for every type of character in your party.</blockquote>
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Well, in a game like Dungeon Siege, you definitely need to have a lot of fun equipment swapping, because there isn't anything else to do.

 

[Voss]

But...but they have Mystical Zaurask Crowns of the Fox!!. I mean, those are so amazing!! You just have to get it just to have one.

 

[huh]

isn't this supposed to have at least these amazing graphics for an RPG? wow, I just looked at the screens at the bottom of the article, and man, this looks like total ass. every character is made of 3 polygons, the textures are a washed out mess, the figure proportions are all out of wack, and it just looks crappy. (well, the fact that it plays crappy needs not be mentioned... ) even ToEE, based on a tweaked 5 year old engine is much better looking.

 

[Sol Invictus]

That's because the only thing remaining in ToEE's engine from Arcanum is the source code and the way it handles Python files on the fly (though this could be new, did Arcanum use python files or .c?)

The graphical engine for ToEE is -completely- new.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

That's because the only thing remaining in ToEE's engine from Arcanum is the source code and the way it handles Python files on the fly (though this could be new, did Arcanum use python files or .c?)

It wouldn't have been C, since C is a compiled language.

 

[Rayt]

It seems like they used a couple of low resolution screenshots without any fancy graphic options (like Anti Aliasing) turned on.

In this one the game looks much better.

Anyhoo, I'll probably buy this if it adds any to the multiplayer goodness. If they'd marketed the original as a fun multiplayer hack&slash game instead of a revolutionary rpg, a lot of people wouldn't be suckered in buying it for the wrong reasons.