Interview Dungeon Siege II Q&A at GameSpot

[Spazmo]

Tags: Dungeon Siege 2; Gas Powered Games

<a href=http://www.gamespot.com>GameSpot</a> got some guys from Gas Powered Games' Dungeon Siege II team to do an <a href=http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/dungeonsiege2/preview_6114738.html>interview</a> about the upcoming action RPG sequel.<blockquote>GameSpot: We've been told on previous occasions that the most common feedback that Dungeon Siege fans sent to the team was about the first game's story and setting, and that the team is really trying to create a story-driven single-player component for Dungeon Siege II. Without spoiling too much, can you tell us about the game's story and how it came about?
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Kevin Lambert: Not only did we want to create a more compelling narrative experience for Dungeon Siege II, but we also wanted to make sure that the party characters were interesting and had flavorful personalities that came across during the adventure. To that end, the party characters will often speak and banter between each other depending on who is in your party. Dungeon Siege II takes place about 100 years after the original Dungeon Siege. [It still takes place] on the continent of Aranna, and we wanted to make the story much more epic in scope by having the player travel to many more locations across the continent this time around.</blockquote>I imagine a Dungeon Siege game really would need a great story to make it worth <s>watching</s> playing.
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Thanks, <b>PennyAnte</b>!
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[PennyAnte]

Here's my take:

GameSpot opens with:
"The original Dungeon Siege embodied the action role-playing genre. A fast-paced, hack-and-slash game, Dungeon Siege let you control a party of adventurers …"

All of that is debateable, and it gets even better in the Q&A.

When Lambert says:
"The party characters will often speak and banter between each other depending on who is in your party …"

I think: How very Baldur’s Gate 2! Will it have Minsk?

When Lambert adds:
"The party characters all have their own personalities, histories, and personal agendas outside of the main adventure. If players pay close attention to what the party members have to say, they may uncover clues on how to embark on each party member's personal journey."

I think: How very KOTOR! Will it have Carth O-friggin-Nasty?

He also says “the story is broken up into three acts,” I guess so we all know we're getting some Diablo too. And he makes sure to work in that there’s dual wielding. (Just in case IGN doesn’t do a friggin five-page preview on that tomorrow.)

My favorite is when GameSpot asks if there will be "branching paths that open and close to players depending on their decisions and how they completed certain quests."

Lambert:
"The primary quest arc is directly tied to the storyline. ... Players will occasionally come across some branching quest paths that will be slightly different depending on players' choices."

Just say no, Kevin.

 

[dojoteef]

Wow a recent new guy that I actually like. None of that, wtf is up with people here at the Codex, just plain old bashing developers and previewers/reviewers, yay!

 

[Lasakon]

I just realized I still have Dungeon Siege installed, I really need to uninstall it or try playing it... no, uninstalling sounds better.

 

[aboyd]

Well dojoteef, if PennyAnte is the Yin, I'll be the Yang.

My presumably unpopular comment would be that I actually like party banters and NPC-specific quests. I've installed banter packs to feed my addiction. I've restarted games before finishing just to see what each NPC could do under different circumstances. I'm a sucker for it. And I have no reason to dislike a second helping. I mean, I recall a few of the WoW designers saying that they didn't care to push the envelope, just to make the best MMOG possible. A greatest hits, sorta. I'm not up for WoW, but a greatest hits of CRPGs, yeah, I'll look into that. I don't mind if I've seen the concept before, so long as the implementation is fun.

So if the new game is going to have that stuff, it's going to make me pay attention. I don't know that I'll buy it (especially if they maintain the "monster battle every 10 feet" theme that the first one had), but I'll keep a more open mind than I had before.

 

[Mendoza]

While I can't say I'm particularly excited about Dungeon Siege 2, at least they seem to be adding stuff that people have requested. It's not like they're 'streamlining' it like Bard's Tale by removing 'superfluous' elements like inventory management. So they're adding more roleplaying elements and you're critisising them for it. Good work.

 

[Sol Invictus]

I think they should remove any semblence of gameplay whatsoever instead of adding to it to appease the whiners.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

Re: Dungeon Siege II Q&A at GameSpot

I imagine a Dungeon Siege game really would need a great story to make it worth <s>watching</s> playing.

Amen. With you on that one. Looks like it's going to be Interactive Screensaver 2. We'll have to wait and see though. I'm willing to give it a chance. Doubt I'll purchase it though. Borrow it from a friend.

 

[PennyAnte]

So they're adding more roleplaying elements and you're critisising them for it. Good work.

I see what you're saying overall, but I'm not criticizing just for the sake of criticizing. It sounds to me like they're honestly doing a lousy job.

It's a bad sign when a developer starts cherry picking features from other games in the genre. Ideally, a developer starts with a strong, creative and artistic original, then builds on its strengths to make a strong, artistic and creative sequel.

DS2's developers sound like they're flailing around. It seems like they're building a patchwork game based on fan feedback because they know the original was too weak to be a solid foundation going forward.

Cherry picking features leads to games like the mediocre Diablo-clone Sacred. I'm not saying quality games can't draw inspiration from other games, but there's a difference between being artistically influenced and cherry picking features.

Blizzard makes heavily influenced games. But their games are, I would argue, very solid, artistically coherent products. They make the fusion of influences feed into a grander, greater vision that is the game's real core.

Cherry picking fails to do so. In Sacred, it's OMG let's have item sets and uniques like Diablo. But they're poorly implemented. DS2 will have "skill trees." I suppose if the game doesn't sell so well, they'll use D&D rules next?

I also don't think in-party dialogue is as important as other role-playing elements. Kevin already said there are no meaningful branching story paths. Granted, few games really pull this off, but it's a true RPG feature we're all hungry for, and DS2 is just the latest game to miss a golden opportunity.

At best the game flow will be like KOTOR. The plot will be a single highway heading in one direction, but with several lanes. I'll be able to drive like an evil bastard or a goody-two-shoes, and I can change lanes whenever I want (to Wookie World or the Sandbox), but I'm still barreling along, one-way, down the same old road.

At least If I knew at the beginning that my character used to be Revan, I could have had a reason to be good or evil, then attacked the story in a way that would have made it feel different depending on my moral choice. But that's old news.

The DS2 story sounds like it has potential, and we'll have to wait and see. But I think even if it's fantastic, there's still every chance of getting Otaku_Hanzo's Interactive Screensaver 2.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Sacred 1.7 overhauled the item system, added new features to items, and improved the drops. Before 1.7, I would have agreed with you that the rare and unique item thing in Sacred was just a crappy rip off of Diablo's uniques and rares. After 1.7, it's still a rip off, but the crappiness is definitely gone.

That said, Dungeon Siege also ripped off that unique and rare type items that Diablo also had, but it pulls it off much, much worse than Sacred did. I could go in to the problems with Dungeon Siege's items, but that's an old subject. The question is, has Gas Powered Games learned why their take on the rares and uniques sucked like Ascaron did when they were working on 1.7? Can they apply that to the other features they want to impliment they've seen in other games?

 

[suibhne]

A friend gave me his copy of the first one after uninstalling in disgust. Despite his wild-eyed, rambling complaints about laser-wielding cave monkeys and the total lack of tactical combat, I installed it and really tried to play the game. I can only say that my tastes seem more similar to my friend's than I had previously realized; Dungeon Siege really brought us together.

 

[dojoteef]

Dungeon Siege really brought us together.

Wow, a moment of true friendship brought on by the crappiness of an "RPG". Couldn't you see a Hallmark card in this somewhere, or maybe even an advertising campaign for Dungeon Siege 2?